


Cryptic Soulmark

by Inkblooded_Witch, Psynatural



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel!Castiel, Dean/Cas Reverse Bang 2021 (Supernatural), Destiel - Freeform, Druid Gilda, F/F, F/M, Fluff, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Rated for language and mild gore, Slight Whump Dean, Soulmarks, Soulmates AU, Vampire Benny Lafitte, Werewolf Garth Fitzgerald IV, human!dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-28 23:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30147297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkblooded_Witch/pseuds/Inkblooded_Witch, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psynatural/pseuds/Psynatural
Summary: At the age of thirteen, everyone, human and non-human alike, receives their soulmark. At the age of twenty-one, any human with a non-human takes on traits of their soulmate. Generally just having their name and language helps find your soulmate, but Dean is not so lucky. Not only is he unable to read what’s on his arm, he doesn’t even know what it’s written in. After years of searching, legal or otherwise, he has nothing to show for it besides an impressive list of what his soulmate is not. When he finally turns twenty-one, he doesn’t just get an unpleasant surprise, he has even more questions than he had to start with.
Relationships: Andrea Kormos/Benny Lafitte, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury/Gilda, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Garth Fitzgerald IV/Bess Myers, Jody Mills/Bobby Singer
Comments: 14
Kudos: 189
Collections: Dean/Cas Reverse Bang 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [[ART MASTERPOST] Cryptic Soulmark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30124149) by [Inkblooded_Witch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkblooded_Witch/pseuds/Inkblooded_Witch), [Psynatural](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psynatural/pseuds/Psynatural). 



> This is my story submission for the Dean/Cas Reverse Bang 2021, and it was an absolute blast! The following tale was inspired by fantastic art created by the lovely Psynatural.  
> [You can check her out here!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psynatural/pseuds/Psynatural/works)  
> [And click here to see her art post!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30124149)

Dean was officially born on January 24th at 4:00a.m. Whether or not you remembered the exact time was often dependent on the person. Some didn’t care, ignoring or outright forgetting that moment in time. Others had it memorized from an early age. He hadn’t told anyone, but Dean had set an alarm that morning when the clock turned over and he’d turned thirteen years old. The only reason Sam knew was because they’d shared a room at the time, he’d heard the alarm go off. Dean had wanted to be awake for that special moment, silly though he felt it was.

His plans had failed him that day, through no fault of his own for all he still beat himself up for it. Sam had heard his alarm go off and had had to stumble across the room to turn it off. Dean had not been there because he’d been passed out at Bobby’s after working three double shifts in a row. He’d tried, damn it all he’d _tried,_ but he couldn’t stay awake. Maybe he could have survived the exhaustion, but then he’d gotten into a fight with John when he got home. He’d escaped mostly unscathed, but Bobby had still felt the need to patch him up when the boy had appeared on his doorstep. All because John was angry that Dean had managed to spend both their paychecks on rent, utilities, and groceries before he got the chance to drink any of it.

So instead of staring at his arm when his soulmark had first appeared, Dean woke up six hours later to find it in place. A memory so steeped in disappointment he could still taste it. Not that he hadn’t stared at it enough since then. Now he could write it out blindfolded, odd as it was.

The thing with soulmarks was that everyone had one. Everyone. Human, vampire, demon, djinn, mer, other, it didn’t matter. Once a person turned thirteen, a mark would appear on their inner left forearm. If they had no left forearm, it would appear elsewhere, but it did still appear. A mark that would never go away, a mark that was always there. In each case it was the name of your soulmate written in their own hand in their native tongue. Once upon a time it had often been printed in iron gall ink, etched with a quill pen, or whatever the current writing method happened to be. Now it was more often scrawled in pen or pencil, with few exceptions.

Just his luck, Dean appeared to be one of those exceptions.

Worse, he was a one-in-a-million exception.

When he’d woken up on Bobby’s couch that morning, Jody setting a mug of coffee on the table, his birthday cake baking in their oven, it was to the most bizarre markings he’d ever seen on his arm. They weren’t English, or Japanese, or Russian, they weren’t letters in any sort of alphabet he’d ever seen. Not only that, he had no idea what the damned things were written in. He’d seen Sharpie, charcoal pens, even a typewriter font. But his were a vivid, crystalline blue, and if the light around him wasn’t bright enough, you could see them glowing. No one’s soulmark had glowed. Ever. If anyone would know, it would be Dean.

While he hadn’t exactly started with the most abundant of resources, Dean had decided early on to make it a mission to crack the code emblazoned on his flesh. Something that got easier after John made the mistake of going after Sammy one drunken night. He could do whatever he wanted to Dean, but he would not let anything happen to his brother. Getting in between John and Sam had only compounded their father’s anger, but unlike all the other times Dean couldn’t limp that beating off. It was the first time he’d had to go to the hospital. After that Jody, who also happened to be a sheriff in their humble town of Sioux Falls, had finally had grounds to arrest him. They’d moved in with her and Bobby after that. With the sheriff nudging things along, transferring legal guardianship to her and Bobby was prompt, to say the least.

Things had looked up in so many ways after that. Sam flourished in school, he started making real friends. Dean was informed, in no uncertain terms, that he was not to take on any more than part time work while he was still in high school. Since he’d only worked so they could eat regularly, it was easy enough to give in. Besides, at thirteen it had all been under the table anyway. School still wasn’t his favorite, but with better food and better rest, it was easier to handle. More importantly, he now had time to devote to his newfound hobby.

“Still clear, chief. What’s taking so long?”

Dean grimaced, but didn’t answer, for multiple reasons. The cameras might be on a loop, but Charlie had made it very clear that the audio was still active. This old coot had actually gone for the good tech. Even if this wasn’t the case, he had a damn penlight between his teeth.

Of all the skills he’d picked up out of necessity before Bobby had taken them in, he hadn’t thought lockpicking would be one he’d have to keep in practice. He eased his third pick in a little farther, giving it the slightest of twitches, and… _click!_ Lips quirking into a satisfied smile around his penlight, Dean reached his left hand around to slowly lift the case’s lid. It slid up without a squeak on well-oiled hinges, and he kept it up with one hand as he removed his picks from the lock. That was one thing you could count on with the less practical rich folk, they were too important to have to listen to squeaky hinges. It never seemed to occur to them that a creaky floorboard here, a hinge that shrieked there, could be just as handy in security as freakishly expensive systems.

Picks stowed, Dean turned his attention to the case in front of him. Still keeping the lid aloft, he reached in with a gloved hand, gingerly working digits between soft cloth and worn leather. There wasn’t a speck of dust on the ancient tome, the leather of its binding so old it didn’t even creak as he lifted it from its resting place.

“Hurry it up, the guard ‘ll be making his rounds soon, brother.”

Dean ignored Benny’s urging, focusing on easing the thick volume into a cloth bag, which he then slid into his backpack. He zipped it up as quietly as was physically possible, then took the penlight from his mouth as he shouldered it. He didn’t bother locking the case back, though he did pause to lock the main door into the room it was in. The old collector who owned this place wasn’t due back for some time, and Dean doubted this would be the first place he would check. You could see the book was gone easily enough, there wasn’t a point to locking the case back, but if the door was unlocked someone might notice sooner.

_Go to college, they said,_ he grumbled internally, coaxing the deadbolt back into place. _You’ll get involved with good people, they said. You’ll go down the right path, they said. Yeah, right. Only difference now and ten years ago is what I have to steal._

Not that he would be telling Bobby. Bobby nor Jody could ever know about these escapades, few as they were. He only did it because he felt he had to, and he was lucky enough to have awesome friends who understood. Charlie was currently at home, behind a computer, where she kicked ass. Benny was outside, keeping an eye on the lone guard station, keeping Dean up to date. His phone was tucked in his pocket, on a conference call between the three of them, streaming everything directly to wireless earbuds stuffed into his ears. Modern technology at its finest.

It took an odd route to get back out of the expansive house, including sidling along one wall and walking across a few couches that probably cost more than his rent, but Charlie swore it was the best route to avoid cameras and leave the least amount of trace. At least once he was out of the collection room the last lock he had to turn back was the kitchen door. It wasn’t even that heavily guarded, not like the mahogany front door with its alarms and three different bolts. Honestly, if it was to his advantage Dean might get some serious milage out of this particular degree of foolishness. Fortunately for his targets, he needed to stay under the radar.

“Clear,” he muttered at last, skirting the yard and trotting into the tree line.

“Right on time. Guard just came in the front. Be around to pick you up in a minute, chief.”

“Well?” Charlie urged.

“Well what?” Dean peeled off latex gloves, stuffing them into a pocket for future disposal. He stopped just short of the road that ran behind the old man’s property, turning off his light to wait.

“Is it actually super old? You said 400’s, right?”

“I didn’t flip through it, if that’s what you mean.”

“Why not?” Charlie protested. “We go through all this trouble and you’re not going to check the goods?”

“Because you don’t just ‘flip through’ a super old, illuminated manuscript,” Dean argued. “Like….like Atilla the Hun was big, old.”

A truck with the headlights turned off came rumbling up the road, slowing to a stop near where Dean waited. He glanced up and down the street, then trotted across the short span between trees and asphalt, hopping into the passenger seat. They were rolling before he even got the door shut again, setting his bag at his feet.

“You sure this is the one you’ve been looking for?” Benny asked as they headed back into Lawrence.

“Wouldn’t have taken it if I wasn’t.”

“Is that why he wouldn’t let you see it?”

“He wouldn’t let me see it because he stole the damn thing,” Dean informed her, slumping back in his seat and pulling off the black knit hat he’d had pulled low over his ears until now. As much for camouflage as to keep from shedding DNA evidence. “Even when he gets back and finds out it’s gone, he can’t report it. He got it illegally over the black market. We’re in the clear.”

Benny glanced over at him, lips curled in a bemused smile. “Especially if a museum finds it on their doorstep in a few weeks.”

“He embezzles from his own animal charity, who does that?” Charlie demanded. “Why wouldn’t you take anything else?”

“Because this is all we needed. If we’d stayed longer it would have been riskier. Besides, with this gone he’ll be out five million, and we both know damn well you’ve already been messing with his bank accounts.”

“And we have to work in the morning,” Benny pitched in helpfully.

Dean groaned, head thumping back against the headrest. “And we’ve got to work in the morning.”

“Does that mean you won’t be coming to trivia night tomorrow?”

“Nope. We’re out.”

“Oh come on, again? We haven’t won in months,” she whined.

“We need to work extra shifts now so we can still pay rent when we have to take off for exams,” Benny reminded her. “We can’t all work from home.”

“Next time,” Dean promised, fishing his phone out of his jacket. “Sorry, Charlie. You hungry?”

“Bribing me with food isn’t going to solve the problem,” she huffed.

“So you don’t mind if we get pizza without you?”

“Do that and I’m putting your search history on a billboard.”

At some point, as they picked up a midnight snack and met up at Charlie’s place, it occurred to Dean that he’d gotten a little too comfortable with this peculiar lifestyle. Granted it was something of a crapshoot when you were in college, but he was fairly certain most of his classmates didn’t moonlight as antiquity thieves. His best friends pitched in because they knew it was for a good cause, and they only targeted people who deserved it. The individual he’d lifted a black-market manuscript from had been very rude, slamming the door in his face and calling him a ‘filthy grease monkey’, among other things, as he threatened to call the police if he didn’t get off his property. Dean had only asked for the chance to look at something he was rumored to have, maybe take pictures to study from. Plenty of people were more than willing to boast and show off, particularly to a linguistics student who could appreciate the value of what was in their collection. Others, like old Sinclair, had been ripe for justice. Charlie had actually been hoping he’d be a dick so they would have an excuse.

It had started small, just breaking in so he could get some pictures to work off of. Then he decided that such valuable antiquities deserved better than their current owners. Then one of those collectors had stiffed Benny at the shop, and one thing had led to another. The next thing Dean knew, he was breaking into an antique shop to remove an orihon style Japanese text from a very secure safe.

To be fair, as a rule no one would suspect them of such things. He and Benny were both Mechanical Engineering majors, Charlie was an IT major, all three had part-time jobs, and clean records thanks to a certain redhead. They made good grades, they kept their noses clean, and as far as Dean knew, no one suspected. Well, maybe Sam, but Sam knew pretty much everything.

“Go on.”

Dean looked up, meeting Charlie’s impish smile. By now they were sitting around her living room, pizza boxes open on her coffee table, Gilda delicately nibbling on a vegetarian slice while the rest of them crammed meat lovers into their mouths. There was always a sort of rush after a successful heist, but for Dean there was something else. Something more.

“What?”

“Go on,” Benny drawled, twisting open a beer. “You know you want to.”

“Scanner’s up and running,” Gilda chipped in helpfully.

Dean smiled sheepishly, setting aside his plate and getting to his feet. He scrubbed his hands down, then took his backpack into what the apartment floorplans meant to be a second bedroom. Charlie and Gilda had turned it into their tech room, each of them with their own computer setup. A table pushed along one wall functioned as a workspace, roles of plastic, boxes of latex gloves, and a humming document scanner neatly arranged and waiting.

He rolled out some of the plastic, taping it in place, then he withdrew the bag holding their latest take. He placed it on a part of the table free of plastic, then pulled on the gloves. Taking a careful breath, Dean began to ease the manuscript out into open air, placing it in the plastic’s center, flipping on the lamps to shine directly down onto it.

For a moment Dean just stood there, admiring it, unable to resist running a gentle finger down one edge of the cover. He was right, old Sinclair had had it. A Byzantine illuminated text, dated in the early 400’s, probably one of the earliest made since they weren’t produced on a larger scale until the 800’s. Compared to others he’d seen this one did look rougher, the paint and writing cruder, but still it was beautiful. More importantly, it might have information that could actually be of use.

Appreciation done, he lifted the cover, studying the first page, then the second. The writing style was definitely rougher, which was normal considering when it was done, not much better than journals kept in that time. It wasn’t exactly what he’d been hoping for, but he’d long since decided it would be best to leave no stone unturned.

Just to be sure, Dean reached over to roll up his left sleeve, exposing his forearm. Those symbols still glowed softly, but it faded a bit once he stuck it under the harsh light. He turned a few more pages, scanning each one carefully, looking for any letter or symbol that might be close to those of his soulmark.

He checked half the book before he made himself stop, turning back to the cover and taking up the document scanner. He’d have time to go over it more thoroughly later, but for now he needed to get in scans. It was how he was able to let possible leads like this go, he had a copy for himself before leaving them on museum doorsteps. It was part of his agreement with Benny, the man would help play Robin Hood and screw over some dicks, but only if what they stole went to a better home when they were done. Benny still might not have helped, but he knew why Dean did this.

The pizza was cold by the time he got his scans and stowed the text, but he didn’t mind. He had what he needed. There were a few tests he wanted to run once he was back in his own apartment, but those would have to wait. It was nearly one in the morning, and they had to be at Singer’s Auto by eight.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean spent his last weekend before the semester started pouring over that illuminated text. He studied every centimeter of every page, he applied heat and a few other harmless chemicals to see if anything could be brought out. Sometimes there was, other times there was not. This time, there was not, though he was careful not to actually harm it. Someone might need it for the same reasons he did someday.

It was a long shot, he knew it was when he started messing with ancient languages, but what else was he supposed to do? He had already burned through every variation of every modern language, human or otherwise, so he began working backwards. For all he knew his soulmate was in one of those hidden communities that still spoke Old English or something. Well, he’d already ruled out Old English, but it could easily be something just as foreign to him. He’d even hunted down older dialects of languages spoken by non-humans. They tended to run parallel to human languages, but those hadn’t proven very useful either. Vampires, shifters, djinn, ghouls, demons, he’d even gone after draconian texts. Nothing.

Every now and then he might stumble onto a symbol that looked close to one on his arm, though. His hopes would rise, and he would hunt down every scrap of that dialect as he could lay hands on, dissect its alphabet and written form. Each time that happened he inevitably ended up burned out and disappointed, trudging back to the drawing board. Not that it stopped him. Dean was nothing if not persistent. He’d even made linguistics his minor. Well, if he was going to have to go to college anyway, why not take full advantage? This way he had easier access to better materials, he even had an assortment of professors to grill. Not that anyone he’d asked had been able to help him, even those who’d been in the field for decades. One had even taken a picture of his soulmark to email to colleagues around the world, but one by one each had only delivered disappointing responses.

Dean appreciated how many people at least looked at his soulmark, but he did wish so many didn’t say the same thing. Over and over. If he had a dollar for every person who said, “Just wait until you turn twenty-one, it might make more sense then,” he wouldn’t need to pick up shifts at Bobby’s anymore. But that would only work if his soulmate was a non-human. Granted that seemed more and more likely with each human dialect he discarded, but it didn’t mean he shouldn’t stop looking. And what if they were wrong? What if his soulmate was human too? Then what good would waiting have done him?

By the time he and Benny started classes for that semester, he had already made a drop at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum. Funny enough, considering this was hardly the first time he’d done such a thing, there were no extra cameras, no extra security. Within forty-eight hours, Charlie let him know that the announcement had gone out. Apparently yet another anonymous donor had provided a generous donation of one very old illuminated manuscript that had been missing for the better part of two centuries. The Smithsonian was sending a special convoy for this one. Imagining what those pompous scholars would say if they found out how many of their prized additions had been provided by a grease monkey made him snicker.

Still, that would be their last heist for some time. It would probably be at least a month or two of normalcy before something like that came up again. It took a long time to find and rescue each text that they had liberated. They’d even been lucky enough to have it so close to home. Or, as Benny pointed out, they might not need to do it again in a month or two. At least he had the decency to be kind about it. Like Charlie, he empathized with Dean’s plight, for all it wasn’t one he himself had to deal with.

When he was eighteen, Benny had run into Andrea while they were both on a campus tour. He and his soulmate were now sharing an apartment just off campus. They didn’t get to spend much time together these days, with each of them working part time on top of going to school, but they managed. For what it was worth, Dean liked Andrea, she was nice, even if she was a political science major. Charlie had met Gilda last year, at a LARP event. They had since moved in together and were disgustingly happy.

Dean didn’t begrudge them their happiness anymore than he did Sam’s. His baby brother, the lucky bastard that he was, had met Eileen a year ago, when he was sixteen. She was Deaf, but could read lips well enough. Dean had picked up some sign over this last year because of her, but he was nowhere near Sam’s ability. Currently both he and Eileen were still living locally, working on their junior year of high school. He got to see Sammy regularly, but it was a little less often nowadays, not that he blamed him. Once he found his own soulmate, he had half a mind to put a damn leash on them. Then again, if it turned out this untraceable language was due to a cult, he would _definitely_ be leashing them.

The first week of school went by easily enough. By the second week professors began dumping tasks on them in earnest, as usual. Dean still wasn’t a fan, but he’d learned to cope over the years. He’d never be like Sam, an adamant lover of all things academia. He enjoyed learning things, he enjoyed puzzles like the one that had become his life’s mission, he could appreciate really old things, but as far as he was concerned, academia was a means to an end. Nothing more, nothing less.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been so pessimistic about it, but the Sunday following that second week was his birthday. His twenty-first birthday. With the possible exception of thirteenth birthdays, they were widely regarded as one of the most important milestones.

This year, Dean’s birthday would come on Sunday, but considering the circumstances he decided he wanted to spend it solo. While this was respected, it did mean Jody required him to come by the day before. So rather than spend his Saturday moping around his small apartment, Dean spent a good portion of it socializing.

In hindsight he probably should have suspected something when Garth called him about meeting up for lunch. To be fair it _had_ been a while, not that it had been deliberate. Garth had been a roommate in the dorms their first year in college, and they’d stayed friends since. Largely because when Garth decided he liked you it was a permanent designation, and the scrawny guy did grow on you. Maybe it was a good thing he had his heart set on dentistry, if you had to have someone rooting around in your mouth it might as well be the cheerful Ichabod Crane.

Dean wasn’t late, but when he got to the diner he’d arranged to meet Garth and Bess at they were sitting at a larger table than three people would warrant, and it only had one empty seat left. He managed a wry smile, crossing the checkered floor to pull out that last chair. He didn’t get the chance to sit down before Garth was popping up like he was spring-loaded, beaming broadly and yanking Dean into a hug. It was something he’d gotten used to over the years, more or less. Garth was a hugger, and that hadn’t changed, even after his own twenty-first birthday.

“Happy birthday!” he was saying as he pulled away, still grinning.

“Keep it down, would you,” Dean grumbled, dropping into his seat.

“Oh don’t worry, they won’t sing unless you ask them,” Bess promised, eyes twinkling as Garth resumed his seat.

“Which we ain’t,” Benny assured him, sounding thoroughly amused.

“You know we didn’t have to do this.”

Garth looked scandalized. “Of course we do. It’s your birthday, and it’s a big one. You sure you don’t want anyone to stay over, just in case? If something happens- “

“I’ll be fine,” Dean stated firmly. “Chances of anything happening are low anyway. Even if they do, I’d rather go it alone.”

“You sure? It’s not very comfortable.”

Bess reached over, putting a hand on Garth’s arm and giving it a squeeze. “If you haven’t convinced him yet, I don’t think you will now.” After a beat she added, “It’s not like he’ll be able to make this mistake twice.”

“Thanks,” he deadpanned.

“Haven’t you noticed we seem to have a type?” Charlie pointed out.

Dean chose to ignore that, even though he knew she was right. She often was. Garth had been human before his twenty-first birthday a few months ago, but that had since changed. Benny had always been a vampire, Andrea and Charlie were still human, but only for a few more months.

He was trying very hard to look at a menu he’d more or less memorized years ago when a waitress brought a tray over to one of the booths that lined one wall. A tray that had a familiar red-tinged milkshake glass. Unable to resist, he watched as several dishes were set on the table, one of which was a bowl of soup. There were only two people in the booth, a man and woman. The man tugged his soup bowl closer, peering wearily into it. Then he picked up a spoon, taking a careful bite only to wince. The woman reached over, lightly touching his jaw, looking genuinely concerned. She pushed over the opaque milkshake glass, urging him to drink. He didn’t seem enthusiastic about this, but he did suck on the straw. Moments later his eyes glazed, and sharpened teeth began to protrude from between his lips as he started chugging his glass of blood.

Dean finally tore his eyes away, staring down at the menu before him instead. He deliberately focused on the entrée listings, trying very hard not to look at the opposite page. Set between dessert and drink offerings were what was tastefully referred to as ‘Other’. Blood, in the usual three size selections, was near the top of that list. It was accompanied by a little asterisk and the prompt to ask your server about what types they had on hand daily. There were also pig and cow hearts, which were served alongside your choice of side dish. Artificially produced brain fluid and pituitary glands were also offered, but it was more of an appetizer for those who required such things, a category he truly hoped he would never fall into. The real thing was rare, and you had to go through official channels to get it since they couldn’t be donated like blood. Not that he wanted to find out if there was a quality difference firsthand. Typically pituitary glands, and sometimes brain fluid, were the first things extracted from organ donors. They were regulated, and unless you were a child or otherwise had a significant need they could be hard to get ahold of. To discourage people from just harvesting straight from humans, heavier penalties were laid on those who tried. Not that it stopped all of them. The fact that other options had been cultivated, and the willingness of humans to help where they were able had encouraged wraiths, kitsune, and others to police themselves.

Transforming into a wraith or kitsune didn’t sound overly pleasant, just because of the dietary needs he’d develop, but they were the more comfortable options in that department. He’d heard when you went from human to vampire the teeth were the worst. You were essentially growing in a fresh set, and it often took at least a week. Some changes were fast, others slow. He thought shifters had it easier, they were just forced through their first shift within minutes of their birthday turnover. Everything else, the less painful stuff, generally kicked in over the following month. Garth had confirmed that, and while it had obviously not been pleasant he’d taken it all in stride. Bess had fussed over him the whole way, proud of her lupine bloodline but distraught over the pain it caused her soulmate. If it wasn’t so nauseatingly sweet Dean might have stuck around a bit longer. Garth had let him stay for his birthday turnover, if only for moral support, along with Bess. Seeing the guy change into a lanky, dark brown wolf for the first time was fascinating and, if he was being honest, a little terrifying. Mostly because Garth himself had gone wild eyed with an understandable mix of pain and panic. Once he’d settled down, he’d more or less begun acting like a big house dog, down to pouncing on Dean and licking his face when he tried to bid them goodbye. Bess had had to haul her soulmate off him by the scruff and began a stern lecture on canine etiquette while Dean had fled to Baby.

Charlie’s change would be more subtle, altered senses and a limited range of basic woodland magic. Not much, but enough to perk up daises and talk to chipmunks if the urge ever struck. The only physical change she would have to look forward to were pointed ears. At least Sam wouldn’t even have to deal with that. He and Eileen both were human. His brother had actually been a little disappointed in that, for all he wouldn’t change a thing. Dean honestly wasn’t sure if it bothered Sam more that they were perfectly human or his soulmate had been. Still, adapting to someone who couldn’t hear seemed to provide him with stimulation enough. Though he had been miffed when she turned out to be the better driver, something about more fine-tuned peripheral vision.

Dean only dragged himself from his reverie when a waitress came by to get their orders. When she returned with a tray of food some time later, Benny reached over to stick a candle directly into the top bun of Dean’s bacon cheeseburger. He glared at the vampire, who only grinned shamelessly as he lit the lone candle with a lighter.

“We won’t sing, brother, just blow out the damn candle.”

He blew it out before Charlie could do more than pout. They did get him pie, though. That was something he’d never turn down, and they knew it. Because…. _pie,_ obviously.

To their credit, aside from the initial teasing they kept the conversation away from all things soulmate related, doing a good job of distracting him. It had been a while since they’d all hung out together. They still made time, but outside of school and work and heists and trying to function as adults as a whole, it seemed to shrink more every year. Just like Dean hadn’t been home since New Year’s. He saw Bobby at work, obviously, and Sam came by his apartment whenever he pleased, but outside of holidays he didn’t often cross Lawrence to go home.

Jody welcomed him into the house with a smile and a hug, as always. She’d just gotten off work, if her uniform and belt was any indication. She sent him into the kitchen to keep an eye on dinner while she went to change, Sam bounding passed her as she mounted the stairs like the overgrown puppy he was. At seventeen he was at eye level with his brother and still seemed to be growing.

“Hey, Sammy. Where’s Eileen?” More often than not they were joined at the hip.

“She couldn’t get off work tonight, but she helped me pick out this, and the card.”

Dean grimaced, but accepted the present wrapped in festive paper. “Thanks.”

“Can I come back with you tonight?” his brother blurted. “Please?”

Sam’s trademark puppy eyes were met with a hard glare, which wasn’t infallible but Dean had made up his mind on this long ago. “No. How many times do I have to say it, Sammy?”

“Come on, why not?” Sam whined, trailing him to the kitchen. “I already packed, and I’ve got homework I can do, and- “

“I don’t care, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d rather deal with whatever on my own. We don’t even know if there will be anything to deal with anyway. You could be staying up all night for nothing.”

“What if I get up early?”

“No.”

Sam groaned. “It’s not like you already know who it is, and all the professionals say it’s better to have someone on hand to help you out.”

“Damn it, Sam.” He turned away from the oven to glower at him. “Enough. Drop it, okay?”

Thankfully Bobby chose that moment to come inside, pan of steaks and grilled potatoes in one hand. “Happy birthday, boy. Now make yourself useful, go get what’s left off the grill.”

Giving the still baking cherry pie one last look, Dean went out onto the porch. He didn’t catch what was said, but he heard the rumble of Bobby’s voice, and when he came inside Sam looked chastised. His brother clearly wasn’t happy about it, but he stopped pestering.

A part of him did feel bad for keeping Sam out like this. Deciding to go it alone hadn’t come easy, and he’d only made up his mind a year ago. Sometimes he still wasn’t sure, but he was holding his ground. The fact was that, despite a lot of effort and a crap-ton of time, Dean still had no idea who his soulmate was. It could be another human, or it could not. If it was, then nothing much would happen at 4:00a.m. tomorrow morning. If it was, he’d know in short order. Either way, he didn’t want Sam seeing him then. Whether he went through a biological overhaul or hit an all-time low as nothing happened, he didn’t want his little brother to bear witness. He didn’t want anyone there, in fact he planned on locking himself inside for the whole day. He’d stocked up on jerky, bacon, pie, beer, and whisky for the occasion. Regardless of what happened, he had a feeling he’d be wanting to get drunk, and tomorrow it would actually be legal.

After dinner Jody sat him down in the living room and made him open his presents before they could eat pie. He obliged, ripping paper off Sam’s present first. His eyebrows shot up, and he gingerly lifted a book bound in soft leather from its repurposed clothing box. It had that distinct old paper and ink scent, the cover was inscribed with lettering printed into leather rather than painted on. ‘Cryptolinguistics of Real and Mythical Winged Beings, Vol. 4’. He already had volumes one, two, and three in his personal collection, each of which he’d had to obtain through bartering or getting lucky with someone who didn’t mind a lowball offer. Well, the first volume he’d had to steal, but Jody didn’t need to know that. The first volume was first published in 1120, the second in 1459. Every few hundred years, as the opinion people had of their non-human counterparts evolved, so did the gold standard of their linguistics. Though this particular series focused entirely on those with wings, regardless of how real the world at large thought them to be. Sirens, dragons, and demons had all become part of accepted society since the first publication. Volume four had been first printed in 1950, shortly after demons had finally gained some semblance of acceptance. Weary? Yes. Prejudiced? Undoubtedly, but they were allowed to live in relative peace. Things had since improved, but this was still a hard text to find.

“Where did you get this?” Dean asked, running fingertips over the stamped title.

“I got lucky.”

“Found a book seller who was willing to trade it for a few month’s salary,” Bobby muttered into a beer bottle.

When Dean’s head snapped up to stare at his brother, Sam was glaring at their adopted father. “Thanks,” he deadpanned, making a face.

“Sammy, you can’t- “

“I can, and I did, no take backs.”

Dean thought about protesting further, but he caught Jody’s eye. She stood behind Sam’s seat, giving a subtle shake of her head. Her mouth was set in a firm line, but her eyes were twinkling. So rather than scold his brother further, Dean hooked an arm over his shoulder and thanked him for the gift.

Sam huffed, shoving his arm away, hair ruffled. Reaching over to pick up a bag topped with tissue paper, he shoved it forward and ordered, “Open it.”

The present from Jody and Bobby was far easier to accept. At least in his case he wasn’t going to run the gamble of not liking this very nice bottle of scotch, he’d tried some over at Rufus’s place once. It was the good stuff.

Gifts accepted, they were allowed to eat pie, but only after Jody lit approximately twenty-one candles lined around its crust and made him blow them out. She liked her traditions, and grumble though he might, Bobby was in the habit of indulging her. Because he loved her, not because she was the sheriff and could easily get away with hiding his body in the basement.

Despite Sam’s final efforts, Dean drove home alone that night. He climbed the two flights of stairs to his small, studio apartment, locking himself in. He set the bottle of scotch on his coffee table, next to his newly acquired text, then trudged into the bathroom for a shower.

He thought about sleeping. He tried to sleep, seeing as tomorrow was going to be a very long day no matter what happened. After a few hours of trying he gave up, trudging back into his kitchen and glaring at the oven clock, glowing numbers reading 11:09. Not even the 24th yet.

Clad in only boxers and a gray undershirt, Dean got himself a beer and dropped onto the couch to watch a Clint Eastwood movie. It was a true testament to his state of mind that even his favorite cowboy movie couldn’t make him any less restless. Three beers later, he muted the TV and took Sam’s present over to the small table tucked against a wall by his little kitchenette. He flipped on a light, poured himself some of the good scotch, muttered a happy birthday to himself, and took a slow draft.

Smooth. Rich. Just like he remembered. Topping up his glass, Dean sat down with a fresh notepad and pen, carefully opening the book. He began reading through it, making notes, searching for any bit of information that stood out. It didn’t have to be new, just different. Sometimes a thing said in a different way meant a different thing, or hit differently, made a different connection.

Dean worked for the better part of an hour before he felt the scotch starting to work, and he set aside the text. Wanting to work on new material when he wasn’t tipsy, he pulled over his computer to bring up scans from that most recent illuminated manuscript. He clicked through scans, then infrared images.

When letters and symbols began to swim, he gave up altogether and stumbled back over to the couch. It was 2:15 now, so he made himself stop with the scotch. Grudgingly he brewed some coffee, flopping down onto the couch to nurse his first cup and rummaging through various streaming services for something to watch.

By the time he was on his second cup he’d settled on the fifth instalment of All Saints’ Day, hoping some David Yaeger would have a calming effect. Considering he was trying to ingest caffeine, it wasn’t working. He’d no sooner finished that second mug of joe before he felt himself nodding off before he could so much as stagger to his bed.

**~~~BREAK/BREAK\BREAK~~~**

The itching was what woke him up. At first Dean wasn’t even convinced he was awake, that it was part of whatever scotch-induced dream he’d staggered into. He squirmed on his back, trying to rub his shoulder blades against the mattress, but when that didn’t work he rolled over, trying to reach up to scratch it manually.

He wasn’t sure when precisely he started to come out of it. Maybe it was when the itching turned to a burning, or when pinpricks of pain began to spark in the same general area. Dean bolted upright, realizing he was on the couch and not in bed only as he tumbled off it. He scrambled upright, flailing a little in an attempt at reaching his own back even as pain rolled through him in earnest. Whatever alcohol-induced haze that had lingered abruptly vanished, seared away, and he was wide awake. He fumbled, yanking his undershirt over his head even as he stumbled into the bathroom, flipping on the light with a wince.

It took a bit of contorting, but he managed to get a glimpse of his own twisting back in the mirror. Dean squinted, rubbed watering eyes, then made himself stare through scorching light at where that painful burning persisted. Right then he was very sure he was fully awake, hit by both relief and dismay as he recognized what was happening to him. Deciding to celebrate his revelation later, Dean bent one arm around to try touching one of the raw red welts marking his skin. Two of them had formed just inside each shoulder blade, stretching from where each began on down to the middle of his back. Angry, red things with nubs starting to protrude. The burning sensation wasn’t easing up, if anything it was intensifying.

_Wings, they got wings,_ he thought wildly, chest heaving as he stared at those rising nubs. Then, _Shit, this is gonna hurt like a bitch._

Dean didn’t get the chance to celebrate finally being able to narrow down his suspect pool before a wave of agony crashed through him, even as he heard his own flesh tear. It brought him to his knees, and he barely managed to crawl to the toilet before his stomach rebelled. Shaking hands clutched at porcelain, a second wave of anguish forcing a strangled cry from his lips even as more bile pushed its way up his throat.

Hot drops began rolling down his back. Blood, he knew it was blood, but he could barely see straight, never mind try to staunch the flow. Just breathing seemed to take what little energy he had, sucking in breaths, trying to stay somewhat upright even if that meant hugging a damn toilet bowl, staring at the bright blur that was his bathroom wall.

The third wave of agony had his spine arching backward like a bow, and he no longer had the energy to contain a scream. Something was growing from his back, thrusting out of his skin, two somethings. His hands went white knuckled on porcelain, and when he was able to get his own back to straighten out it was just to heave again. By now there wasn’t much left, just bile working its way from his throat.

Slowly, the burning torment eased to a steady throbbing of constant pain. More of a steady gnawing sort of anguish than a steady stream of burning agony. Dean sucked in a few deep breaths, unclenching his fingers one by one until he could make a grab for the counter. He fumbled a little, bracing one hand on the vanity and gripping it with the other as he dragged himself up to his knees. Just enough so he could turn on the faucet with shaky hands and cup some water to his mouth. On his first try most of it spilled down his lips and chin, which was still a relief. It took a few more attempts before he was able to get some into his mouth to rinse with.

Only then did Dean drag his gaze up, staring blearily at his own reflection. His eyes were red rimmed and overbright, freckles standing out on ashen skin, lips damp, water still dripping down his chin. His shoulders and chest were bare save for the amulet he never took off, the one Sam had given him after that thirteenth birthday.

For a moment he was tempted to try and look again, then decided against it. He’d seen a few recordings, usually in documentaries, of humans getting their wings. Humans who’d already met their soulmates, who knew what they were getting. It was a slow, painful, bloody process. Suddenly he decided it probably wouldn’t do him much good to see what was becoming of his own back. Best to wait until the process had run its course.

Dean tried to get his feet underneath him, but when he tried to stand his head spun, and his head nearly wacked the counter as he keeled over. As it was his shoulder hit the wall hard enough to make him wince before he slid back down to the floor. Swallowing thickly, he decided that maybe walking wasn’t such a good idea right now. Certainly not without someone to help him, not that he wanted anyone here right now. He didn’t want anyone seeing him like this.

Reduced to crawling, first he went back over to the toilet to flush it, then began the very undignified process of crawling slowly out into the apartment proper. It was slow going, he couldn’t move very fast or his head started to swim again, but he got himself to the kitchen. Thankfully he didn’t have to go through the process of getting a glass down from high cabinets to get some water, there were some plastic bottles in his fridge. Granted they were put there by Sam to try and encourage being ‘healthy’ but that just meant he had a nice supply waiting for him.

Dean dragged one from the fridge, putting a shoulder to cool metal as he twisted off the top and gulped half of it in one draft, not caring some spilled over his jaw and cheeks. He rested his forehead against the fridge door, eyes fluttering shut, still clutching crumpling plastic in one hand. The thought of eating was so far from his mind it was hilarious, and frankly he wasn’t sure he could keep anything besides water down. Not until the wings developed in full.

Every movement jostled them, but laying down somewhere wasn’t going to be easy, or comfortable. So Dean took another bottle of water, kept the one that was half finished, and began the slow, painful crawl over to his couch. More specifically, the coffee table in front of it. An assortment of papers, pens, food wrappers, a textbook, and a few notebooks were swept unceremoniously to the floor as he dragged himself up onto it, only letting the remotes remain. Once there, he left his water within reach, and tried to find something, anything, to distract himself. Suddenly _All Saints’ Day_ seemed a little too close to home, turning his stomach for the first time ever at the thought of having to watch all that blood when his own back was currently a gory mess.

In short order he settled on the Three Stooges, and cranked the volume up. If it was too quiet he could still hear the low symphony of ominous squishes and crackling at his back that matched every single tug and twist. The less attention he could pay it right now, the better.

This sort of thing took hours. _Hours._ Granted he’d known this, but knowing a thing and experiencing it were two very different beasts. At first Dean was determined to just ride it out on his coffee table, which at current was the most comfortable place to be. But inevitably he did have to go to the bathroom, which he put off for as long as he could. In the end sunlight was starting to creep through his windows as he crawled back to his toilet, nearly passing out as he hauled himself up onto the seat.

It occurred to him as he carefully lowered himself back onto hands and knees, pulling his underwear back into place and flushing the toilet again, that he’d have to be careful in tight spaces now. Humans with new wings were notorious for knocking them against walls, door jambs, and clearing entire shelves. He’d once seen one poor mook accidently clear a solid six feet of cereal off a grocery shelf when he’d turned around.

He hesitated at the doorway, and though he hadn’t needed to before he did see if he had any muscle control yet. Flexing a muscle when you weren’t sure where it was, or if the nerve endings had even been formed yet, was just as tricky as it sounded. After a few minutes he gave up, deciding an extra bruise or two probably wouldn’t make a difference now, and crawled back through the doorway. He did so carefully, only relaxing when he didn’t feel anything. He hadn’t bothered trying to get a look at them again, but if he couldn’t move them yet then it was likely muscle and nerves weren’t done forming yet. No doubt he’d know when that happened.

Dean groaned softly as he dragged himself back onto the coffee table, resting his cheek on cool wood. He felt exhausted, but there was no way he was falling asleep when it felt like Garth was using his back as a chew toy. Or maybe like an oversized cat was busily sharpening their claws on his shoulder blades. Every now and then the steady pulsing would be supplemented by a spark of sharp pain, or a jerk as something twisted or turned on its own. With daylight starting to brighten his apartment, Dean had gotten a good look at the floors on his crawl back to his current post. Apparently at some point he’d started leaking blood, and he was very glad he couldn’t feel these damned wings yet. Not only were there smeared trails of drying crimson trailing across his floors, but swaths of blood were on two walls and one counter. When he looked back, he saw more streaking the bathroom door three feet from the floor.

Great. Just great. He started looking for something else to watch, miserably looking for a new distraction. Honestly the blood trails weren’t so bad, just a few clusters of drops, no real spatters. It was the rest that worried him, spread high and wide. The sweep of crimson now painting his bathroom door was easily three feet long. Were they that broad, or were they just long?

Dean eventually found he didn’t care much, dully watching a few episodes of The Wire before sluggishly dragging himself back to the floor. He had a feeling TV wouldn’t be very effective anymore, so he went around and gathered some notebooks, pens, his computer, and the book Sam had given him. He scrubbed his face wearily, opening up the spreadsheet he used to keep track of what texts he’d already been through. Sam’s idea, actually, but Dean had taken pains to make sure he didn’t know he’d gone through with it. Not after he’d made such a show of scoffing and mocking the idea. In his defense, that was back when he’d only had a few dozen texts to keep up with. Back when he’d had no idea just how difficult the quest he’d set out on would be.

After updating the spreadsheet, he hooked his laptop to a Bluetooth speaker, cranked up Led Zeppelin, and opened up ‘Cryptolinguistics of Real and Mythical Winged Beings, Vol. 4’

Funny enough, having something to really hone in on helped cope with the pain, especially once he settled into a familiar rhythm. He was faintly aware of the sun rising outside, of the changing Zep songs on his playlist, of the occasional additional twinge from his back, but none of it got his full attention. This was as close to that meditation, Zen crap Sam had recently gotten into. Dean would just as soon eat his own boot before he sat cross legged and chanted “ohm”, or ate kale for that matter, but this he could manage.

Dean was well into a chapter on griffins, which hadn’t actually been seen in the better part of four hundred years, when the headache began. At first it was just a faint throb in his temples, dwarfed by the burning misery that was now his back. But it steadily grew and grew, getting worse with each passing minute until he couldn’t ignore it anymore. His pen fell from his fingers as he jammed the heels of his hands against his forehead, eyes screwed shut, a guttural groan in his throat.

Just when he was about to demand, “Seriously?”, he was nearly thrown back against the couch with a shout. Even over Zeppelin he could hear flesh and sinew twisting, tearing. He lurched forward, grabbing the coffee table, only to scream as fire roared through his system. His headache escalated to gargantuan proportions, his ears ringing, he didn’t even realize that was himself he could hear screaming until he felt it in his own throat.

It wasn’t until some of the broiling sensation eased that Dean started putting two and two together, ears still ringing, head still throbbing. Nerves. The nerves had connected. Everyone said that was the worst part. That was good, though. It meant he was nearing the end.

Dean wrapped his fingers around the coffee table’s edge, body draped over it, fumbling to close his laptop. He couldn’t make out the music anymore, so what was the point? But this headache was new. Granted just about anything could crop up when a human began their transformation, but Dean had never gotten migraines. Even hangovers hadn’t hit him this bad. Was this just his own special hell, or was it species specific?

Something soft and wet brushed his sides. Dean dragged his eyes open, turning his head just enough to get a look at what he hoped was a freshly formed wing. He wasn’t disappointed.

They were only half extended, and he could barely feel them, never mind move them, but at a guess they would be easily as long as he was tall. He could only see his left wing, which glistened gruesomely in the sunlight, still coated in blood and bits of gore, but the feathers beneath looked hardy enough. But that now meant he’d have to be careful of two, six foot extensions now attached to his person. Awesome.

Trying to ignore all the red, he frowned at what was indeed feathers. Not a demon, then. Demons had wings, yes, and were the most common of the winged, non-human variety. But their wings were more like bat wings, with bone and flesh. When he didn’t hurt so much and he could think straight, Dean would appreciate this more.

Humans were the most common of the species walking the planet, but in total they made up roughly fifty percent of the worldwide population. That meant he’d just knocked out half of all prospects. Once you whittled it down to non-humans who had feathered wings, you had even fewer. At the same time, this made even less sense. There weren’t many who fit into that category as a species, but any linguistic connections he’d made had not led him to believe he’d be dealing with wings. At best maybe a shifter or a dragon, but not a siren or a phoenix.

Much to Dean’s dismay, as he slipped into drained unconsciousness, he was left with the same question he’d been trying to answer for the better part of a decade. _Who is my soulmate? What the fuck even are they?_


	3. Chapter 3

“Dean? Dean, wake up. Dean?”

He dragged his head up, instinctively trying to get up as Sam called his name, shaking his bare shoulder. “Sammy?” he slurred, vision blurring briefly before sharpening. He found himself staring up into his brother’s worried face, midday light pouring into his apartment.

“Dean, what the hell? Did you shift or something?”

It took a second to process that, though it got easier with his headache’s initial pounding retreating. Unwilling to question his good fortune, Dean frowned up at his brother and demanded, “What? What’re you doing here, anyway?”

“I came to check on you. I brought you lunch.” Sam motioned to the table, where some takeout was waiting. But in the process of looking, Dean also saw all the blood he’d left trailed everywhere.

“Thanks.” He braced a hand on the coffee table, which he’d been slumped over in an uncomfortable position, and carefully dragged his feet under him. Sam grabbed his arm, helping him as he carefully straightened. His back ached, but more like it had taken a beating than sprouted wings.

“So?” Sam urged, trailing him to the table.

“So what?” Dean asked, grabbing the scotch bottle and not bothering with a glass.

“What’d you shift into?” Sam blurted, tone verging on exasperated.

Dean, who was taking a swig of scotch straight from the bottle, paused to frown at his brother. “Shift?” he repeated. “Sammy, I didn’t shift.”

“Then what’s with all the blood? And why aren’t you wearing anything?”

After looking down to confirm he was still, in fact, wearing underwear, Dean glanced over one shoulder. He hadn’t sat down because he didn’t want to knock tender wings against the hard backed chair, and was making due with leaning heavily on the table. Nope, still there. It occurred to him at some point he’d have to clean the damned things.

“Kinda hard right now, Sammy.”

“Dean…what the hell happened?” Sam spread his hands as he asked, brown eyes worried and dead serious. It took a moment, just because it didn’t make much sense, but something very important clicked.

“Sam…what’s on my back?”

His brother spared a brief glance for his hunched spine, then quipped, “A little blood?”

“You can’t see ‘em?”

“See what?” he blurted, sounding thoroughly exasperated.

“I…Sam, I’ve got wings.”

Sam blinked. “Wings?” he repeated, peering at his back again. “Where?”

“What do you mean where?” Dean demanded, dragging himself upright. He winced as stiff tendons creaked, sore vertebrae protesting. When he looked back again, they were still there. It was hard to tell what color they were, but the feathers were dark, each of them sheening softly even under the mess that covered them. “On my back, where else?”

His brother took a step closer, eyes narrowed. “Are you messing with me?”

“Why would I be messing with you?”

By this point he was thoroughly annoyed, he’d suffered for these damned things the least Sam could do was look at them. For the first time he really tried to move them. New muscles and torn flesh screamed, but he was able to make them fully extend, reaching just over six feet to either side of himself. For a moment he was wondering if Sam was playing some kind of messed up prank, but then his brother’s eyes bulged, and he stumbled back a step.

“Whoa! Dean!”

“You see ‘em?”

“I see them.” Sam was staring directly at them, lips parted, sucking in a sharp breath. “They’re…” He trailed off, eyes narrowing. “They’re gone.”

“What?”

“They were there, now they’re gone. Just…like a bad radio signal or something, I only saw them for a minute.”

Dean checked, but they were still there. “Sam,” he began warningly.

“They were!” Sam took a step forward, reaching out carefully. Before Dean could tell him not to, Sam’s fingers brushed where the primary bone had been. It was still there, he could see it and they certainly hurt enough, but fingertips passed through the space without making contact.

Brow furrowing, Dean stared at his wing. He tried to move it again, getting them to twitch upward a little, wingtips quivering, and Sam’s hand jerked away. “They’re back,” he blurted. “What’re you doing?”

“How the hell is it you can only see them when I try to move them?” Dean bit out, letting them droop.

“And they’re gone.” Sam looked from him to where he’d apparently last seen his wings, gears churning. Dean was too tired to think much, shoulders slumping, but he could see his brother trying to connect dots. “Are they…I think I’m only seeing them when you’re focusing on them.”

“They’re kinda hard to ignore,” Dean quipped sharply.

“I know that, but you have to really think about them when you move them, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, maybe that’s it.”

“No, that doesn’t make sense. No species has to think about them for people to see them, they’re just _there._ Like- like druid ears or some shit.” Gilda, a forest nymph herself, was one such example. Any sort of nature spirit, druid or nymph or melusine, had ears that tapered to a point. Often those tapers were colored or textured, depending on their specific nature. Gilda’s were tipped in warm forest green, but Dean had met a few water nymphs on a spring break trip once whose ears were blue and textured like scales. Even sirens had pointed ears for that matter, along with their wings. Both of which could be seen at all times.

“Then why can’t I see them now?” Sam was challenging, folding his arms. “I couldn’t feel them, either.”

“You touched them!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I didn’t!”

“Damn it, Sammy!”

“Dean.” Sam stepped forward, slowly raising his hands to grip his bare shoulders. Staring directly into his eyes, he stated, “I didn’t feel your wings. I saw them, twice, but I haven’t felt them. I can’t see them right now. But I believe you, this is real, _those_ are real. We’re gonna figure this out, okay?”

It occurred to Dean that he should be the one talking Sam off the ledge, not the other way around. Every other time in the past it had been. Hell, he’d talked Sam out of his panic-induced spiral after he’d first found Eileen. He’d been delighted at being so fortunate while he was still a teenager, but it had also been incredibly daunting. Even more so when he’d realized his soulmate was Deaf. He hadn’t been angry about that part, just terrified that he wouldn’t be able to be what she needed, that he wouldn’t be able to cope properly. It was stupid, and Dean had told him as much. If anyone would voluntarily bend over backwards to do whatever they had to for their soulmate, it would be Sam.

His brother had risen to the challenge presented to him, and then some. He fully intended to do the same. At least now he had a narrowed suspect pool.

“I’m gonna have to clean these things at some point,” Dean muttered at last. “Good a time as any to get the hang of his crap.”

Sam smiled wryly, not looking at all surprised, but some of the tension left his face. “Okay, good. Let’s start there.” Glancing around, he added, “Then we can clean up the rest.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“You’re going to eat.”

“Not hungry. Head hurts like a bitch.”

“When did that start?”

“After the wings started to slow down.”

“Is that why you keep drinking?”

Dean paused, bottle halfway to his mouth. His eyes narrowed, and he asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. No one knew better than them that chugging alcohol didn’t fix anything, it just postponed and made things worse in the interim.

“Fine. There’s Tylenol in the cabinet.” He waved a hand in the general direction, like Sam wouldn’t already know where it was.

As he took down the mostly full bottle, his brother ordered, “Eat something, it’ll metabolize faster. Then we’ll work on your wings.”

“Are you stalling?” Dean asked suspiciously, knocking back the pills and swigging water.

“No, but I thought you might. And it really will help.” Sam opened the grease-stained bag, pulling out a still-warm burrito and pressing it into Dean’s free hand. “Here. I’ll put on some coffee. Did you sleep at all last night?”

“Not really.”

Two burritos and a mug of joe later saw Dean sitting on the edge of his tub. He’d never actually soaked in it or anything, just used the shower fixtures, but it was finally coming in handy. The shower curtain was shoved to the far end of its rail and moved outside the tub, warm water rumbling from its spout. Sam, who’d taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, reached up to take the showerhead from its mount.

“Okay, uh…are they in?”

Dean glanced to either side. He’d dragged them in to a half folded position, so each wingtip had an inch or two of clearance between them and bathroom tile. “Yeah. Can you see them?”

“When they move…kinda.” Sam sucked in a breath, then reached down to turn on the showerhead. Water slowed to a trickle from the faucet and started blasting in a more dispersed fashion. “Want to try moving them again? Or just really thinking about them, or…something?”

His entire skull still pounded, a high pitched whine still buzzing between his ears. But the intense ache that was his wings had died down to where it now matched his hangover-grade headache, which in itself was roughly as bad as that time he’d mixed tequila shots with jaeger. Food had taken some of the edge off, but he had a feeling this wouldn’t really get better for a while.

Setting his jaw, Dean kept one wing in his peripheral and tried to turn all his attention onto them. When Sam first turned the warm water onto feathers, a pained wheeze forced itself from Dean’s mouth. His hands went white knuckled, spots dancing in his eyes, but he otherwise didn’t budge. Instead he stared through watering eyes as his brother moved the showerhead back and forth in even strokes, along the primary bone that ran along the top of his new appendage. Water gone solid red with blood sluiced off feathers, the plumage beneath getting soaked through in short order.

Whatever additional discomfort the pressure caused, Dean felt some of the tension leave his shoulders as warm water permeated through the feathers to bones and sinew beneath. When he asked Sam to turn the temperature up, his brother obliged. Otherwise Sam was fully honed in on his task, turning water on both sides of Dean’s wing in an attempt to clean them out thoroughly.

Eventually, when the water mostly ran clear, he asked carefully, “Is it okay if I touch them? Just to make sure I got it all?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Dean winced as Sam gingerly brushed fingertips amongst soaked feathers, but to his credit his brother tried to be gentle about it. The water got redder again, though, so he kept his mouth shut. Seemingly in sprouting from his back they’d essentially been dipped in blood.

Eventually Sam turned his attention to the opposite wing to begin the process all over again. It seemed to take an age, or at least it did to Dean. His head still throbbed, but he had to admit that the already clean wing did feel a little better. Whether it was because it was now clean all the way through, or the hot water, he had no idea.

When Sam finally turned off the water, Dean tried to wiggle his wings to knock water off them. His initial flaps sent drops spraying all over the room, but he did finally manage a more sedate wiggling, jiggling motion. His brother complained about getting wet, putting the showerhead back on the wall after rinsing out the tub.

“You should get some of that shampoo, it might help too.”

“Shampoo?”

“You know, the kind they make specially for wings?”

“Oh, yeah, right. But don’t they make it specific to the species?”

“I guess, but that’s just for feathers, and there’s not many kinds. Just try it. They’re clean, but they’re probably dried out now.”

Dean stood up stiffly, grimacing as his headache redoubled its pounding, pressing the heel of a hand to his forehead. He stretched both wings out, then carefully curled them forward so it would be easier to get a look at them. Their movements were still jerky, uncoordinated, but he was getting better.

One wing was still dark, wet, but the other was mostly dry at this point. Jet black feathers ruffled, glinting cobalt in the bathroom’s LED lights. So it hadn’t just been the blood or the water, these things really were black. That was…also odd.

“Where’s the patterns?” Dean muttered, squinting at the other wing. “How come they’re solid?”

“I don’t know,” Sam protested. “But they’re supposed to match, right? Maybe this will help narrow things down. I haven’t heard of transparent wings before. Or solid black wings.”

“Actually, Tengu have solid black wings, but they’ve also got the whole transformation thing going on. If they were a Tengu, I would have wolfed out. Or birded out. Whatever.” They were one of several rarer peoples he’d stumbled onto while looking for more obscure dialects, but their language hadn’t been a match either. Another strikeout.

“Okay, so if it’s not a Tengu, what’s left?”

“I don’t know,” Dean snapped, exasperated. “Sirens have patterned wings, at least two different colors. Phoenix’s get a damn rainbow.”

“What about griffins?”

“If there’s still any around, I would have shifted, and same thing. Their wings match whatever fur they get. You think I haven’t been trying to crack this? I should be able to pin down exactly what they are now, but I still can’t.”

“They’re gone.”

“What?”

“Your wings, they’re gone again.”

Dean spared an exasperated glance to either side, but then did a doubletake. The glimmer that had been light reflecting off them was now an outright sheen around each feather, just enough to be noticed and that same shade of pale blue as what emanated from his soulmark. He hadn’t noticed before, or maybe it had been masked by the coating of blood.

Even as he stared, the sheen quickly faded. Once it was gone, Sam announced, “They’re back.”

“They…glow.”

“What?”

“When you can’t see ‘em, they glow.”

“Seriously?”

It took a little trial and error, but they managed to work out that if Dean wasn’t paying his wings a significant amount of attention they faded from Sam’s view, just disappearing into thin air. When this happened, they adapted that sheen, which only seemed to kick in when they were no longer visible to Sam. Why they did this, Dean had no idea, but they were consistent. So was what all went along with that transparency, which took even more time to figure out.

Dean was genuinely afraid to leave his apartment that day, and Sam ended up ordering delivery rather than leave when dinner time rolled around. He had classes to get to, shifts at Bobby’s shop, he couldn’t afford to start holing up in his apartment indefinitely. So he had to get these wings figured out, and fast.

This turned out to be far more complicated than he originally anticipated. If they were _there_ all the time it would have been easier. He’d get used to them, minding them, making sure they were properly folded and out of the way. Just learning how to unfold them a little to sit comfortably in a chair took more practice than he ever would have guessed. Unfortunately this got doubly complicated when they realized that their transparency went beyond the visible spectrum. Dean guessed this was why he hadn’t knocked them into the doorway getting in and out of the bathroom before his brother had showed up. When Sam couldn’t see them, they went straight through solid objects. He could sit normally in a chair, they passed through doorways and furniture, and they didn’t knock things off counters like a petty cat. They had to be visible and physical for that. Two mugs, three books, and his phone had already fallen pray to this.

“You’re sure you want to go to class tomorrow?” Sam asked that evening, after they’d eaten their Chinese takeout. Dean still had the mother of all headaches, but his appetite had returned to normal. “Most people are good about giving you some leeway when something like this happens.”

Dean snorted, stretching his newly grown muscles and going through the motions of a slow, controlled flap. Those muscles had started screaming at him, but his control was improving. “Most, not all, Sammy. One of the teachers is a real hard-ass. Besides, so long as I don’t think about them, they shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Uh-huh. How’s your head?”

“Fine.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am not.”

“Are you going to tell Bobby? They’re worried about you, you know.” Holding up his phone, he added, “Five texts. They know I’m over here.”

“Have you told them?”

“Just that you’re fine. Figured you’d want to tell them. Plus I’m not sure what to tell them anyway.” Occasionally they had taken a few breaks, during which time Dean had delved back into his collection of texts and computer files. Between him and Sam, neither had been able to find a species that matched what he was currently dealing with. While Dean appreciated just how far this was narrowing things down, he did not like being at a loss. He’d spent years digging into every known and unknown species that existed or possibly existed on the planet, he’d left no stone unturned, how the hell could there be something he missed? It didn’t seem possible, but he was coping with several symptoms that said otherwise.

“I’ll see Bobby tomorrow anyway,” Dean sighed. “I’ll talk to him then. Maybe he’ll have an idea.”

“How?” Sam asked incredulously.

“I don’t know, the guy’s been around a while. You got any better ideas?”

“No,” his brother grumbled reluctantly.

“Neither do I.” He scrubbed his face wearily, trudging over to the couch and sinking onto the cushion’s edge. “Look, why don’t you go home? It’s getting late, and I’m beat. If we haven’t found anything yet, I don’t think we’re going to.”

Sam looked downright scandalized. “You’re giving up?”

“No, just…taking a break. I don’t think we’ll figure anything out now that we haven’t all day. I’ve got other shit going on, I can’t keep banging my head against a wall. You shouldn’t be either.”

“But…”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Thanks for looking.”

“I’m not stopping,” his brother argued, folding his arms. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Yeah, but not tonight.” He’d waited eight years, he could wait a little longer. That was one thing Bobby and Jody had enforced over the years, they weren’t about to let him become one of those people so obsessed with finding their soulmate they ran their life into the ground. He was welcome to dig and hunt all he wanted, but sooner or later he’d need a life to come back to. It was something Dean appreciated as he got older, witnessing such fallout firsthand. Currently, it meant he had classes to get to in the morning, a job to clock in at.

“You have contacts, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve got contacts. I’ll get in touch, see if they have anything on….” He waved absently at a wing that flickered briefly into the visible spectrum before vanishing again.

“Can I…can I touch them?”

“They’re still sore. Maybe later.” At least he had the sense to ask first. An assortment of traits were something of a fascination to humans, wings among them. Some had a habit of touching without asking first, which was very rude. Now that he had a set of his own, Dean could see why.

“Alright, uh…see you around.”

Dean nodded, bidding his brother goodnight as Sam let himself out. Once he was gone, he lowered his head into his hands wearily, resolving to take as many pills as it took to touch this damned headache. It felt like salt shoved into an open wound.

Today was supposed to be _good._ It was supposed to provide answers. But no, instead he had even more questions now than before, which he hadn’t thought possible. Fucking perfect.

**~~~BREAK/BREAK\BREAK~~~**

Monday was far more interesting than Dean had hoped it would be. His headache was still there, for one, despite valiant efforts on his part. The soreness was easing from his new wings, but his control over them was still severely limited. When he woke up that morning they were even worse. He couldn’t even leave his bed for the first hour, and he was nearly late to class. His wings had been out when he had first stirred, a few stray feathers in his sheets, and they must have knocked some frames over during the night. Dean wasn’t entirely sure how, but a few pictures he had on a shelf had all been knocked face-down, and he didn’t see how else this could have happened.

Stumbling to class was a pain, even worse than when he’d been hung over in times past. Every sound grated on his nerves, even the rumble of his beloved Impala. Never had he thought in a million years that Baby’s purr would be unwelcome. He had curtains and blinds for his tall windows in his apartment, but this was the first time he used all of them even in daylight. Anything brighter than a low light made his eyes pound.

That was the odd part, his headache had spread to his eyes and ears. Not his temples, teeth, jaw, or even nose, just his eyes and ears. He found himself wearing sunglasses inside, which made him feel like a douchebag. Needless to say he fled the lecture hall the moment class was over.

He didn’t even listen to music as he drove around town that day, going to class, then going home for a few hours to work on homework until it was time for his shift at Singer’s Auto. Generally Dean didn’t dread going in, but this time he had to make himself get back behind the wheel. He kept on sunglasses and tried putting on earmuffs, but it barely took the edge off and he got several odd looks. At least Bobby was busy handling a prickly client when he got there, so instead he was confronted by Benny.

“Hey, brother. How you holding up?”

“You know, you could at least be subtle.”

Benny, who had been looking at him carefully, only offered an unrepentant grin and a shrug. “Can’t help it. You smell a little different there, chief, anything you wanna tell me?”

Dean paused, then set his change of clean clothes into his locker and turned to face the vampire. “Different now?”

“I dunno, just…different. I figured that meant your soulmate wasn’t human.”

Grimacing, the human admitted, “They’re not.”

“So?”

“So, it’s…complicated.”

“Complicated?” Benny repeated, brows arching. “You’ve made this your life’s mission. What’d you do, sprout horns?”

“Not horns,” Dean edged, leaving the locker room.

“Then what?”

“I’ll explain later, let’s just- “

He cut off, grunting as he clinched his teeth, a clanging rattle reverberating through the line of bays. He knew what it was, someone had probably just dropped a wrench, it happened all the time, but it _hurt._ For a brief moment he even saw double.

“You okay there, chief?”

“No,” Dean groaned, turning to go into the office only to wince as more LED lights scorched his retinas.

He was going to see what vehicles needed what when Bobby came in a different door, grumbling about entitled idjits under his breath. When he saw Dean, surprise crossed his face. “Decided not to call out?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Well, considering what you’re going through…”

“I’m fine,” Dean groaned. Then promptly jumped a solid six inches off the floor as a semi on the highway outside honked its horn.

“Yeah, you’re real fine,” Bobby deadpanned, folding his arms. “You do realize this is a perfectly good reason to take a day.”

“Sam told you?”

“Not having anyone around when it kicked in was your call, but since something is happening here, you really oughtta take it easy.”

“Wait, so you don’t know what they are?” Benny asked incredulously.

“No, I don’t,” Dean snapped, exasperated.

Even as he spoke, the lightbulb directly over his head burst in a shower of sparks. Dean jumped, then carefully minced his way away from shards of broken lightbulb. He was dusting off the shoulders of his coveralls when Bobby asked, “You been drinking, boy?”

Dean glared at him, though eyes he knew probably still looked red rimed and bloodshot. He’d tried drinking way too much water, at Sam’s suggestion he’d tried flushing them with saline, he’d even tried taking a damn nap. Everything that came up as suggestions when you plugged ‘how do I get rid of bloodshot eyes’ into a search engine. “Yeah, but not the way you mean.”

“You been sleeping?” Bobby stepped forward, pressing a palm to Dean’s forehead, brows furrowed beneath his trucker’s cap. “You feel warm.”

“I ain’t sick, Bobby,” Dean protested, shoving his arm away.

“If you got a fever, you shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m fine, just…going through some shit. I just wanna work, Bobby, please.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when a truck pulled into the lot outside, headlights panning over the office and blasting through the windows. It felt like he’d gotten raked with burning high beams, and he stumbled back a step, squeezing his eyes shut. Before he got the chance to open them again, someone in the garage turned on an air compressor. His knees buckled, and he clamped both hands over his ears, vaguely aware of his ribs running into the front desk.

The ringing in his ears got so bad it was all he could hear over the roar coming from outside, his headache redoubling its efforts to make him suffer, stars flickering under his lids as he screwed his eyes shut. He thought he heard someone yelling, but at this point he couldn’t even be sure, never mind work out what they were saying. Someone was gripping his shoulder, pulling him forward a few steps and pushing him down into a chair.

Unable to bear it anymore, Dean bellowed, _“Turn it off!”_

In perfect sync, every single lightbulb still in the office exploded. Frames dropped from walls, more glass breaking as a few broke on impact with the linoleum floor. The computer monitor hurled itself from the desk, yanked from its own HDMI cable and power cord. Moments later, the air compressor turned off. Blessed silence filled the room.

Slowly, the ringing in his ears, the pounding in his skull, and the burning in his eyes began to drop off. After a minute he felt like he could take his hands away from his ears, which he did. When he could bring himself to look around the darkened room, Bobby stood in the now open doorway, staring at him, face now invisible in the shadows. Benny was crouched next to him, hand still on his shoulder, but his blue eyes were a bit wide.

“Maybe you oughtta take a day,” Bobby said at last, the words coming out slowly.

He hadn’t exactly been running on all cylinders to start with, but now he felt even more drained than before.

“Come on, chief, you’ve got plenty ‘a sick days saved up,” Benny urged, pulling him to his feet. “Need me to give you a lift?”

“I can drive,” Dean grumbled, pushing his hands away. “Just…got a headache, that’s all.”

Neither of them commented, or tried to correct him. Benny stayed with him as he trudged his way out to the Impala, even helping him into the driver’s seat. When Dean turned to tell him again he was _fine,_ he was surprised to see all the lights out in the garage too.

“What happened in there?”

“All the lights went out at once, brother.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t just the office.”

“Wait, so they…”

“Yeah. We should have enough spares to keep going. Don’t worry about it, you ain’t the first to have a rough go of it, and you ain’t gonna be the last. Now go home.”

Benny clearly took care not to actually slam the door, but Dean winced all the same. He outright cringed when he had to start Baby’s motor. Not for the first time he was very grateful Singer’s Auto rested very close to the center of town, it meant he only had to drive about fifteen minutes to get back to his apartment.

The first thing he did when he got home was dig around until he found a roll of blue tape, then set about sealing curtains over their respective windows. The ones that had blinds he covered with sheets, towels, and whatever he could find. He hadn’t turned on overhead lights all day, and he deliberately avoided them now. He only turned on a lamp here, a kitchen sink light there, the barest minimum he needed to see and not trip over furniture. Then he started unplugging things, anything he didn’t need. The electrical hum of just having the TV plugged in was driving him nuts.

Dean only left what was needed plugged in to slog through homework, after which he even unplugged his router. He set an alarm on his phone for the morning, took more than the recommended dose of Tylenol, downed double the recommended dose of melatonin, and shot gunned four glasses of cheap tequila.

He was not a religious man, by anyone’s standards, but as he collapsed into bed, wings splayed over his mattress, he prayed that it would be over when he woke up in the morning.


	4. Chapter 4

It was not over in the morning. In fact, Dean was unconvinced it hadn’t gotten worse. Tuesday was much the same as Monday had been, so was Wednesday. On Thursday he dragged himself to work, reasoning that if he’d managed to survive classes all week the least he could do was some damned paperwork. Bobby did relent on that front, but made him do it all in Baby. Something about all those lightbulbs being a pain to replace.

On Saturday he had a full shift, and he’d gotten better at just dealing with the perpetual agony that resided in his skull. By then Bobby even agreed to let him back into the garage, but only if he was wearing ear protection. They didn’t do much, but they helped. A little.

Dean was starting to regret that particular lie as he and Benny worked on the engine of a Jeep Wrangler, trying to figure out which of the completely neglected parts were the real problem.

“Did this dick even change the oil?” Dean wondered aloud, only to wince as he pulled out the dipstick. Judging by the coal-like coloring at its end, that would be a ‘no’.

“Think he wants a miracle,” Benny grumbled, knocking off dirt and dried mud caking around the engine’s edges.

“Don’t look at me,” Dean huffed, wiping an already oil-streaked hand on a rag.

Something seemed to occur to Benny, and he eyed Dean sidelong. “They said you got wings?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, I didn’t hear any bells ringing.”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe your soulmate is a witch, and they botched a transfiguration spell. Wiggle your nose, see if you can’t resurrect her.”

Dean groaned. “Not a witch, Benny. Think I would have noticed that.”

“You exploded lightbulbs.”

“That wasn’t me, that was shit luck.”

Benny gave him an incredulous look. “Come on, chief, you ain’t that dense. Name anyone else, besides demons, that could pull something like that off.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Since when?”

“Since my head is killing me.”

“Still?”

“Yes, still,” Dean ground out, glaring at the engine in front of him. He’d noticed his headaches got worse whenever he was annoyed or frustrated, so he’d been trying to stay calm these last few days. This was just the first time his so-called best friend started pushing his buttons. “Let it go, Benny.”

“Aw come on,” the vampire complained. “You’ve been obsessing over this for years, brother. You really expect me to believe you’ll drop it just like that?”

“I’m taking a break.” As much as it bugged him, it was the truth. He hadn’t even gotten in touch with the professors on campus that might help him pin down an exact species yet. A part of him was pissed at his soulmate, which he hadn’t expected of himself. Generally people who were non-humans were among the most heavily invested in finding their soulmate, in case they were human. Many felt guilt over the pain a transformation caused them. There were even therapists who specialized in this. Where the hell was _his_ soulmate? If their kind was so rare, surely they would know their soulmate wasn’t among their own kind. More importantly, the mook would have answers Dean needed. Why did he get wings that didn’t act like wings? Why did his head hurt? Why did things go flying off tables when he got frustrated over homework problems? They had all the answers, but where were they?

That resentment started to build yet again as his headache slowly escalated, even as Benny asked, “Why now? We’ve been telling you to take a break for years, but why now?”

“Because I’ve got better things to do than track down whatever bastard couldn’t be bothered to show up,” Dean growled, pressing the heel of one hand over his eye.

“You know it might not be their fault, right?”

“Don’t really care right now, man.”

“Now we both know that ain’t true, Mr. No-Chick-Flicks,” Benny teased.

Any other day, it wouldn’t bother him so much. They teased and nagged each other, it was part of the friendship, but right then Dean’s temper erupted. He set his jaw, one hand going tight on the Jeep’s chassis, feeling his wings tense at his back. “Let it go.”

“Oh no, I ain’t letting this go. What- “

“Damn it, Benny!”

At first he wasn’t completely sure what had happened. He didn’t feel anything, all he knew was that there was a grunt, then a crash. When Dean turned to look over at where his friend had been standing, Benny wasn’t there. He looked around, only to have dismay wash over him, extinguishing his brewing anger.

His best friend had been flung bodily back, crashing into one of the tables lining their back wall, his arm slamming against the drawer of a toolbox instead of the table like the rest of him. This might not be so bad, but that particular drawer had a sharp edge and a lot of heavy tools. Benny was lurching forward a step, one hand pressing over his left forearm, looking a little dazed as he stared at it. Blood was already leaking through his fingers, a gash running from his elbow almost all the way to his wrist.

“Bobby, first aid kit!” Dean shouted, rushing forward. He fumbled, snatching a mostly clean rag from the table and pressing it over the wound. “Benny, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened.”

“’S okay, chief. Guess I pushed you too far.” The words lisped around fangs as they came out. The scent of blood did that to a vampire, even their own, regardless of whether or not it was accompanied by actual hunger.

“No, this ain’t your fault, it’s mine.”

There was a lot of blood. It was starting to drip onto the floor. Dean was dismayed to realize how deep it really was. He tried to press the ends of the wound together, wrapping the rag around Benny’s arm, anything to try and stem the flow. He squeezed his eyes shut, berating himself for losing control. It hadn’t been on purpose, he hadn’t even known he could do that, but it was still his fault. He’d done this to Benny, no one else.

_Come on, stop bleeding,_ he urged silently, begging. _It was a mistake, this shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t have gotten hurt, stop bleeding. You shouldn’t even be here, damnit, **stop bleeding!**_

Bobby came trotting over, one of the only other people here today, first aid kit in hand. “Damn it, what happened? Let me see.”

“Did you call an ambulance?”

“Not yet, now what…..”

Confused, Dean made himself look down at Benny’s arm. It wasn’t dripping blood anymore. Gingerly, he lifted one finger enough to peek at the cut. There was still plenty of blood, but he couldn’t make out the gash anymore. Frowning, he began to slowly take his hands away, lifting the rag.

“What the hell?” Despite how much blood had managed to escape Benny’s body, the source of it all was nowhere to be found. He grabbed Benny’s wrist, turning his arm this way and that, even rubbing at the top of his forearm where the gash had been. Nothing. Not even a scar.

“Boy, what the hell just happened?” Bobby asked slowly.

“I don’t…I don’t know.” The words sounded quiet in his own ears. “It…was an accident.”

“Let me go check the cameras.”

Benny slowly took his arm back, examining it himself. Turning it this way and that, flexing his hand into a fist then splaying his fingers, poking at his own flesh and squinting at it from close range. “Huh.”

“Huh?” Dean repeated. “That’s all you have to say?”

“What else can I say?” the vampire asked, shrugging. Poking at his own skin again, he mused, “That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever had happen to me, but can’t say I’m upset to not be bleeding anymore.”

“But…hey, where’re you going?”

“I wanna see what’s on that camera.”

For his part, Dean still felt thoroughly rattled, but he trailed Benny into the back office that served as a security room. In accordance with the CYOA rule (Cover Your Own Ass), Bobby had taken to installing cameras. It was amazing how many people tried to get out of paying, or threatened lawsuits. Having cameras all around the shop, inside and out, solved more problems than it created. As he shuffled into the small space, standing behind Bobby’s chair, it occurred to Dean that this was the first time a bizarre occurrence involving his recent transformation had been caught on tape. The office camera had been installing updates his first day back, and the ones in the bays didn’t cover the ceiling.

Bobby had the feed from a camera pointed directly at the middle bay filling one screen, and was fast-forwarding through the morning. It was a little disorienting, seeing himself and Benny darting around at hyper speed. When he got closer to the current time, Benny slowed to normal speed. They watched as the Jeep Wrangler was pulled into the bay, the hood lifted, he and Benny taking a look. There was some back and forth, Dean stepped away briefly to grab a rag….then it happened.

Dean was a little surprised that he couldn’t see his wings on the tape, but for a moment they became visible, solid. He watched as his own left wing curled forward then snapped back, knocking Benny clear off his feet and sending him flying a solid ten feet before the table and toolchest intercepted him. As soon as the blow was delivered, they vanished again.

His throat went tight as he watched the scene from a minute ago play out. His realization of what happened, his reaction to what had happened, his shouting for Bobby and trying to stop the bleeding. It was brief, and his own eyes had been closed at the time, but he could just make out the smallest flares of white light under his hands as he clutched Benny’s wounded arm. That had been right before Bobby had shown up, and he’d realized the gash was gone, as though it had never existed in the first place.

Bobby replayed the whole thing a second time. Then a third. On the fourth go around he paused the feed on a frame right before Benny got thrown back, when Dean’s wings were firmly visible.

“You can see those all the time?” he asked at last.

“Yeah.” His own voice came out more as a croak than not.

Benny put a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, brother. You fixed it, I’m fine. Feels good as new.” The vampire actually chuckled before adding, “But you get to explain why I’ve got blood on my clothes to Andrea.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean mumbled, dazed. “But how did I do that? I mean the wings make sense, I haven’t got good control over them yet, but….”

“You said you’d already ruled everything out?” Bobby asked, sitting back in his chair and folding his arms.

“Yes.” His headache had eased a bit, but that still left him with a steady throb. “Nothing I’ve got fits anything I know about.”

“What about all those cryptolinguistics?”

“What?”

“What about the unknown?”

“They’re unknown for a reason, Bobby.”

Turning around to face him, his foster father countered, “They’re the only ones left.”

“Everything that falls into that category is either extinct or never existed in the first place. Look, Bobby, I’m done.”

Bushy brows shot up. “Done?”

“For now. I’m…I’m tired, and I’ve got enough to deal with. I’ll start looking again when this settles down.”

“You sure about this?” Bobby asked carefully. He looked decidedly dubious, not that Dean blamed him. For years it had been a near obsession.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Turning to leave, he added, “I’ll, uh…I’ll get the blood cleaned up.”

Neither commented or tried to stop him as he trudged out of the room that served as a security office. Dean would never admit it, but that had rattled him. Badly. It was one thing if it was just him suffering, but he’d hurt Benny. This was an auto shop, there were all kinds of dangerous things lying around. What if he’d knocked the vampire back into a well they used for oil changes? Or onto any one of the various screwdrivers or other long, pointy objects lying around? Yes, alright, he’d healed him, but that just made things worse. How in the _hell_ had he done that? Even the peoples who could do such things needed some sort of spell or ritual beforehand, and the results were never so good. There was always a scar, a welt, something.

He hadn’t been lying. He was tired. Tired of searching for someone who, he was starting to suspect, did not want to be found. Tired of being in constant pain. Tired of having to keep track of a new set of appendages while coping with a perpetual migraine. Tired of wings that got sore very easily and throbbed whenever he knocked something over. Tired of accidently ripping his own clothes. Every time his wings showed up they promptly tore slits in whatever shirt or jacket he was wearing, and this time they’d done that through his work coveralls.

To add insult to injury, he’d gotten travel sized bottles of the various feather shampoos Sam had been talking about. Until he knew precisely what species his soulmate was, he had to guess. This had been a disaster in itself. When he’d tried the shampoo marketed to sirens his feathers had gotten unbearably oily, the griffin-marketed brands had dried them out, the tengu stuff had made him start shedding feathers, and he was very sure he’d had some sort of allergic reaction when he’d tried the product marketed to phoenixes. He’d eventually given up and just tried his own shampoo, which had worked just fine. He’d resisted the urge to send Sam a strongly worded text, if barely.

Considering he’d been counting down the days to his birthday, and how many scenarios he’d dreamed up over the years, this was most definitely _not_ one of the ways he’d envisioned things going down.

**~~~BREAK/BREAK\BREAK~~~**

Two weeks. It took two damned weeks for his headache to finally ease in earnest. Just waking up to a dull throb instead of the usual constant pounding was such a relief he nearly shed a tear. It was still there, but at a manageable intensity. An annoyance rather than a hindrance.

Sadly, the weird things that followed him around didn’t get better. If anything, they got worse. When a professor announced a pop quiz one morning the lights flickered and the projector blew a fuse. There was a brief panic when smoke curled from the box, but it didn’t actually catch fire, possibly because Dean had frantically started thinking happy thoughts. When someone cut him off in traffic all four of their tires burst into flame. After a customer started yelling at him about how much it was going to cost to cover the extensive maintenance their vehicle had needed, all the papers got blown around the room, but at least the customer was freaked out enough they paid without further complaint. When a classmate tried to cheat off his test paper in a math class their chair’s legs all gave out at once, and he wacked his chin so hard against the desk on the way down he started bleeding.

That wasn’t to say all the weirdness was of the negative variety. His luck with red lights improved considerably, though after three days he did start to wonder if anyone besides him seemed to notice he never had to stop at a single one anymore. Whenever he got a bruise or papercut it always mysteriously vanished within seconds. As he got better control of his wings, he could make them do things without them becoming visible, be it holding still or spreading over his head to act as a sort of sunshade. Flying wasn’t something he was prepared to try yet, not that he was sure where he’d do it. His friends and family knew about them, but otherwise everyone else was blissfully ignorant of his recent changes. For now, that just seemed easier.

Dean still harbored some degree of resentment towards his soulmate, but when he was no longer plagued with constant migraines he found himself more willing to resume his search. One by one he visited the three professors on campus who knew of his plight, and one by one each stared at wings that simply appeared from thin air. Unfortunately, when he started describing what he was going through, none had answers for him. Even the head of the linguistics department, who’d been to every continent over the years and visited an impressive number of countries, drew a blank. They offered to reach out to their contacts again, but otherwise Dean walked away having wasted half a day learning that academia had once again failed him.

The wings themselves were a bit tender at times, but no longer sore. It got to where he tended to forget they were even there. When he did remember, they seemed less and less foreign. Every day they responded smoother, faster, to whatever it was he wanted them to do. He still knocked lamps over, still brushed stuff off counters, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been. Not that he’d ever tell Sam as much. His brother was the one who’d suggested practicing to start with. While he wouldn’t give Sam the satisfaction directly, he seemed to notice the change when he came by over the weekend, Eileen in tow. While she did bring a freshly baked apple pie, it was a blatant bribe to get a closer look at his wings. Dean might have grumbled more, especially when she found a loose feather to pluck, but _pie_.

He was actually feeling optimistic after a month, when the headaches subsided entirely.

One day. He got one whole day of peace. Then the voices started.

They woke him up, making him bolt upright in bed as someone shouted between his ears in a language he didn’t understand. It sounded Asian, maybe Japanese or Korean, he wasn’t sure. Then another, softer voice began reciting in what he knew for a fact was German. More and more came, often in different languages, very few in English. Even then, he couldn’t always make out exactly what they were saying, and what they did say often didn’t make sense. He studied languages, but he’d focused more on their written forms. He had a decent grasp of several, enough to be fluent on paper, but verbally? Aside from being able to identify the language being used, he was at a loss.

_“Report in, was the mission successful?”_

_“Reroute your unit to Moscow.”_

_“Мы приезжаем.”_

_“Who has the Cupid’s coordinates?”_

_“Wer hat seine Engelsklinge verloren?”_

_“All Reapers that can be spared need to report to Beijing.”_

_“J'ai besoin d'un jour de congé, qui peut couvrir mes heures?”_

_“Who is on duty in Kathmandu?”_

_“Det trengs et mirakel på dette sykehuset med en gang!”_

_“Sorry, mate, your turn to tell the Captain we’ve got another bludger.”_

_“Chi è lo sciocco senza madre che ha scelto questo Sargent?”_

On, and on, and on. They all sounded different, Dean tried and promptly failed to count how many different voices he heard. At first it seemed to be someone different every time, but eventually he noticed repeats, the occasional back and forth between two or three speakers. Even that was difficult to track, they didn’t always use the same dialect. At one point two different voices argued back and forth for a solid minute, one using Swedish, the other Hebrew.

Initially Dean thought he was finally losing his mind. He stumbled through his daily routine in something of a daze, trying not to panic. No one else heard anything, and at this point he was afraid to ask. Hearing voices was a guaranteed one-way trip to the nearest loony bin, which he wasn’t about to risk. Instead he added ‘ignoring the voices’ to his list of things to cope with.

Approximately twenty-four hours later, he had to add ‘ignoring the hallucinations’ to that list.

The voices were bad enough. He might respond on occasion, start if one started yelling or just plain screaming, but for the most part he could tune them out. It was actually the easiest thing he’d had to deal with so far. But now he was seeing things.

It started when he went by Benny’s place on the way to work. He noticed the vampire’s fangs appeared out, but Benny wasn’t lisping. At first he ignored it, but they stayed out as they got into the Impala and drove across town. Eventually, unable to resist, he asked, “Do you smell blood?”

Benny frowned, sniffed, then shook his head. “No. Why?”

“Your fangs are out.”

His friend looked at him as though he’d grown a second head. “No, I think I would have noticed.”

“Then why can I see ‘em?”

The vampire poked at his mouth, then checked his reflection in one of the side mirrors. “No, chief, they’re hid.” Eying him sidelong, he asked, “You seeing things now, too?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“You ain’t been fine in a month, brother.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dean grumbled.

It took a few days for him to start pinpointing exactly what it was he now saw that everyone else seemed oblivious to. It wasn’t just Benny, it was everyone. Garth’s eyes, which turned to yellow wolf irises when he was upset or shifted, were perpetual. He could see vampire fangs even when they were retracted, he could see a shimmer in a witch’s eye even when their magic wasn’t in use, he could even see a faint shimmer of burning embers in the eyes of a phoenix he shared a class with. Perhaps if that was it, he wouldn’t be so bothered. It was kind of neat being able to see what a person was even when they were passing as fully human.

His real problem came with that, if he was really focusing on a person, he could tell if they were lying. That he quickly learned to turn off, just for the sake of his own sanity, or rather he learned now not to see it. It helped that he had to really hone in on a person and look for a truth before he could tell. This did not apply to seeing a person’s nature, or seeing if they were ill. He could see Charlie’s carpal tunnel, which he hadn’t even known she had. When a sweet old lady brought her car into the shop, he could see the cancer gnawing at her bones. When he finally worked himself up to a grocery run, he could see the set and healing bone hidden by a cast, the COPD in an old man’s lungs.

He didn’t tell anyone about the voices. He didn’t tell anyone about what he could see. Not at first. It almost took another month, by which point he was getting a handle on things. He didn’t jump if someone started screeching in his head without warning, didn’t bat an eye when he saw a young vampire stuffing his face with ice cream. But he must not have hidden things as well as he thought, because Sam sat him down one night and demanded to know what was going on.

While he realized he should have expected this, Dean still wasn’t thrilled. It took a combination of wheedling, pleading, demanding, and puppy dog eyes before he finally caved. Even then, he tried to give Sam the cliff notes version.

The more he talked, the more upset and confused Sam seemed to get. By the time he was done, his brother was pacing his living room. Dean leaned back on his couch, taking a gulp of his beer, and waited. At least Sam didn’t keep him in suspense for very long.

“Why haven’t you told anyone?” he blurted at last, swinging around to stare at Dean.

“What do you mean why haven’t I told anyone?” he argued, leaning forward. “Why do you think?”

“You’re not in this alone, you have people who care about you.”

“They can’t help me with this. No one can. I’m on my own.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah?” Dean rocked upright, matching his brother’s glare with one of his own. “Do you have any idea what’s happening to me? Any idea what I could possibly be turning into? Because I sure as shit don’t. I have no idea what’s going on, and every time I get used to one thing another kicks in. I’ve spent years looking, Sammy, _years,_ and I still have no idea who the fuck they are or what they fuck they are. I’ve got nothing.” He deliberately brought his wings to the visible and tangible spectrum, flexing them to their full length before letting them relax in a half-folded position. “Even these things didn’t narrow it down. Look at me, what the hell am I? Do you have any idea- ”

“Bobby might,” Sam blurted. “But it’s a super long shot, so he hasn’t said anything.”

Dean paused, frowning. “Bobby? Why not?”

“Aren’t you looking into peoples whose existence haven’t been confirmed?”

“My soulmate ain’t bigfoot, I’d be a hell of a lot hairier.”

“Damn it, Dean,” Sam groaned, exasperated. “Be serious.”

“I am serious, none of the cryptids match either.”

“He doesn’t think it’s a cryptid.”

“Then what?”

Sam hesitated, then said slowly, “An angel.”

Dean blinked. “An angel?” he repeated.

His brother nodded.

“An angel.” It took a moment. It started somewhere around his stomach, working its way up his esophagus, then finally bubbled from his lips. “An angel,” he said a third time, the words coming out on a chuckle. A chuckle that became an outright laugh. He cackled, demanding, “What has Bobby been smoking? Angels don’t exist. I think we would know about them by now.”

“Demons exist,” Sam countered. “Where there’s one, there’s got to be the other, right? Hell, heaven, good, bad.”

“If there were angels, why haven’t we heard about them? Wouldn’t demons have mentioned them? Hell, at this point I could probably see them.”

“It’s more plausible than anything else.”

“Find me an angel, Sammy, and we’ll talk.”

“Since when do you have to see a species to believe they exist?”

“That’s not the point. You think I haven’t looked for them too? There’s no proof of them even existing, beyond religious texts or some crappy rumors. They’re not even consistent.”

“Maybe they want to stay hidden.”

“Why?”

“Wouldn’t you? Or it could just be they’re all holier than thou. How the hell should I know?”

It would have been easier to be frustrated with his brother, but Dean had come to find Sam radiated genuineness more often than anything else. Alright, so he’d already thought this, but now he could literally see it. The truth could be flexible, a person could say what they thought was the truth and still get by without lighting up on any radars. But on the few occasions Dean had felt sane enough to experiment with his newfound vision, he’d noticed some consistencies. One being what he had decided to call a bullshit-reader. If a person was genuine, it’d show. If not, that would show too. People like Sam, Garth, Charlie, were genuinely, well, genuine. If it made him feel a bit warm and fuzzy, no one needed to know. Meanwhile his landlord, Marv, radiated the exact opposite. He’d always gotten creepy vibes from the man, but he hadn’t expected malicious intent to cloud him when he lurked in the office Dean had to walk by whenever he came and went. There were others, too, but Marv had the worst case.

“Look, Sam, I get it. You’re trying to help. But I really don’t think an answer is going to show up anytime soon.”

“Why not? Because it hasn’t yet?”

“Because there’s nowhere else to look.”

“What I don’t get is why you’re not open to things like angels after what’s happened to you. Maybe that’s who you’re hearing.”

Dean gave his brother a deadpan look. “You think I’m picking up on angel radio?”

“Why not?”

“Because my soulmate ain’t a damn angel!”

“Why not?”

At that he barked another laugh. “Let’s assume there actually are angels around. Do you really think one of them would get stuck with me as a soulmate? I’m not cut out for that, trust me. Even if I was, I don’t want to get stuck with some holier than thou dick.”

“There’s good demons, why can’t there be…bad-ish angels?”

“I’m not doing this.” Scrubbing his face wearily, Dean went to drop back onto his couch, only to wince as his wings squished against the back cushions. He folded them up, slipping back into the invisible and intangible spectrum. “You wanna order a pizza or something? If not, I’ve got shit to do, and I know you do to.”

“But- “

“I’m done, Sammy. I’m done.”

Sam’s mouth snapped shut. He didn’t look particularly thrilled, but he did let it go. Looking downright glum, he came around to join Dean on the couch, who turned on the game before pulling over his laptop to order them dinner.


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey, Dean. Come over here for a minute.”

He stopped, barely holding in a groan, rolling his eyes before slowly turning around. So close. Just two more steps and he could have made the stairs. He usually took the elevator, but not if Marv was in his office. Generally the guy just made snide comments or asked nosy questions, and was a vague presence his tenants tried to avoid. When he turned around, that weirdly smug smile was on the nebbishy man’s face. It wasn’t a good look.

“What do you want, Marv?” It had been a long-ass day. Since this morning he’d gotten to deal with an exam, getting nailed with a group project with the least responsible people he’d ever met, a flat tire on the way to work, and no less than three entitled douchebags who thought they knew more about their cars than he did. It was late, he was tired, and he was _done._ He did _not_ have the capacity to deal with Marv right now.

“Just to talk. We never talk.”

Dean stared at him for a minute, decided the little bastard was serious, then turned to head upstairs.

“Wait! Seriously, there’s some paperwork I need you to sign. An updated HOA form.”

It took a great deal of self-control to keep from just banging his own head against the nearest painted cinderblock wall. He wasn’t sure HOA was the right label, but there was a portion of rent that went to things like building upkeep and all that shit. Frankly he’d rather not pay it until someone got his sink fixed in less than eight days, but apparently this was one of the suckier parts of adulting. Dealing with shitty landlords. Maybe he wouldn’t have put up with it for the better part of three years, but there was nowhere else this close to campus with rent this cheap.

Grudgingly, Dean trudged back across the main lobby area, adjusting the strap of his backpack. “Fine. Where is it?”

“In my office.”

“What got changed?”

“Nothing, there’s just a law about updating it every few years.”

“Since when?” Dean asked, stepping over the threshold into a tiny, cluttered office with a questionable smell.

“Since now.”

Dean had just enough time to register those words before a cloth bag reeking of bleach was dropped over his head. In the same moment, a needle jabbed into his arm. He didn’t know if the bag was drugged too, but whatever was in that needle was fast, a fog was already rolling in.

Panic surged through him, his wings jerking. He threw them wide, batting them wildly, clawing at the bag, but whoever it was kept yanking it tight, dragging him backward, keeping him off balance and not seeming to care they were getting buffeted. The fog was getting worse, he could feel himself going under. He jerked and thrashed and punched, but it did him no good. His knees buckled, and he was unconscious before he hit the floor.

**~~~BREAK/BREAK\BREAK~~~**

Just when he’d thought he’d had all the headaches it was reasonable for a person to have in their lifetime. Dean groaned softly, shifting, then froze. He wasn’t in bed. He wasn’t at a desk either, or on his couch. This alone was a tipoff, but the headache faded very quickly. Just as quickly as that drug had kicked in.

He pulled his head upright from where it had been slumped against one shoulder, dragging his dry eyes open. He had to blink a few times before his vison cleared, but when he was finally able to look around he wished he couldn’t. It only got worse when the ringing in his ears faded away, and he could hear what was being said.

Someone, he assumed one of the dicks who’d drugged him, had tied him to an unfinished wooden chair. White nylon rope bound his wrists to the chair’s arms, more was binding his calves to the front legs. This was bad enough, but markings were painted onto the chair itself. He was no witch, Sam had always showed more interest in that stuff than him, but he’d taken the time to study symbols they used, just in case. One of countless dead ends, but he was fairly certain he recognized these. They all seemed to be centered on containment, securing, restraining.

Uneasy, he rolled his shoulders, trying to bring out his wings. Nothing. He tried again, but while they batted the air around him, they remained transparent.

Licking his lips, Dean glanced back around the room, then focused his attention on the people gathered in front of him. It looked like an old warehouse, a few of the stained windows broken, but the lights were working well enough. There were some dust-covered crates stacked along two story walls, some tarps, some general clutter, but not much else. Frankly he was a little more worried about the fact that no less than forty people were in front of him, ignoring him, and arguing adamantly amongst themselves.

“Why was this not decided before he was brought here?”

“We didn’t have a choice!”

“He’s developing too quickly, we didn’t anticipate this.”

“Of course we didn’t anticipate it! He’s a nobody, a grease monkey.”

“The sooner this is dealt with, the better.”

“Did you really want to risk _them_ finding him first?”

“No, but do _you_ really want them finding out we killed their soulmate?”

“What does it matter?”

“Can’t you read? Do you really want them coming after us?”

“They haven’t come for him now, what makes you think they’ll know the difference?”

“They haven’t come for him because we’ve hidden him that well, and we’ve had help.”

“Help that has just been retracted. We had no choice.”

“He’s awake.”

One of them finally noticed Dean was conscious and staring at them. As concerning as their words were, realizing these sons of bitches actually knew who his soulmate was, he was just as unsettled by the fact that he was looking at such a variety of people. It went beyond gender, age, race, though there was a hearty range in those departments too. It didn’t matter if they were currently hiding their natures, he could see exactly what they were. Vampires, at least six different breeds of shifter, djinn, wraiths, demons, dragons, sirens, nymphs, nereids, to name a few. He even saw a pair of tengu, a phoenix, and a mer. All of whom were now staring at him. Some looked uneasy, others looked annoyed, or angry, a few just looked arrogant. The only commonality between the group was that all wore the same pen. He couldn’t make out what it was exactly, none were close enough, but they were on lapels, scarves, blouses.

“You know, you really should buy me dinner first.”

“Don’t get cocky, Winchester. You hardly hold all the cards here.”

The speaker took unhurried steps forward, coming to the group’s front as they spoke. Dean peered at him for a moment, trying to work out where he knew this person. It took a second, mostly because he’d never actually heard their voice. He’d seen their picture, though. It was one of the contacts a professor of his had, supposedly based out of NYU. This was one of many who’d told him he had no idea what kind of markings were on his arm.

Now, the demon who had once asked Dean to simply call him Azazel, gave him a discomforting smile and rubbed his hands together. “I’d say you should have stopped looking, but…you could have kept your head buried in the sand and it still would have ended this way. So.” Spreading his hands, he asked lightly, “What can you do?”

“What the hell do you want with me? And why the fuck am I tied to a damn chair?”

“I would have thought that much was obvious,” noted a wraith, raising an unimpressed brow.

“We can’t have you running off, dumbass,” drawled a witch.

“Great. Thanks. But you didn’t answer the first question.”

This seemed to give the phoenix some degree of amusement. “Shouldn’t you be a little more worried right now?” He looked at the dragon he stood next to, jerking a thumb in Dean’s direction. “He does know he’s about to die, right?”

“No, I got that. I just wanna know why. Last request.”

“Because of that.” Azazel pointed at Dean’s arm.

Dean glanced at it, raising his eyebrows. “What happened to ‘no idea, good luck in your hunt’?”

“Clearly, I lied,” Azazel informed him, completely devoid of remorse.

“Yeah, but why? Who the hell are you people? What about little old me has you so worried I’m tied to a chair?”

“We don’t have to explain ourselves to _you,”_ sneered a dragon.

“No, no, gloating’s the best part,” chided a djinn. “Besides, it’s not like he’s going to be around to tell anyone.”

“At least tell me what they are,” Dean complained. “Don’t try telling me you don’t know what language this is. Throw me a bone here.”

“No, no bone throwing,” snarled a vampire. “The longer we wait here, the more we risk ourselves. The more we risk the mission.”

“What mission?”

The dragon who’d been looking at Dean like he’d crawled out of a sewer sighed, pulling a long, curved blade from inside his jacket. “Enough. Let’s just end him and be done with it. Talking gains us nothing.”

Azazel half turned, blocking the dragon’s path. “Where’s your sense of propriety? Showmanship?”

“Showmanship gets people killed.” It came out more as a hiss than not.

“That’s rich, coming from a dragon,” grumbled the witch who’d called Dean a dumbass.

In true draconian form, he whirled around and pointed his blade at her instead. “What did you say?”

For her part, the witch seemed completely unimpressed. “I said, that’s rich coming from a dragon. You people hoard precious metals, gems, bits of beauty from all over the world. No one is more showy than you. Besides, if you just kill him his spirit will still be floating around somewhere, or be reachable. You don’t want that. That’s why we’re all here, to make sure he gets tossed into the Empty, where he belongs.”

“And if anyone gets to kill him, it will be me,” Azazel added.

“Why do you get that privilege?” demanded the phoenix.

“Because I outrank all of you.”

“So?”

Dean started looking down at his chair again as bickering started in earnest. Now just about everyone was arguing with someone else. He jerked at his bindings, rocking himself back and forth, only to go very still as a curved piece of sharp, cold metal pressed against the side of his neck. He froze, then very slowly lifted his gaze up until he could look at the knife. Yup, it was the dragon’s. When his gaze followed the blade up to its handle, then up a jacket clad arm, he met cold eyes.

“Enough of this.”

He pulled the knife back, but before he could swing it forward again Azazel grabbed him, yanking him away from Dean, wings flaring out in anger. A wraith lunged at Dean, her wrist spike fully extended, only to get tackled midair by a vampire. Several shifters went beast mode then and there, clothes shredding, some going for Dean, others turning on their own. No one made it to him, though. Weirdly enough, the apparent need to give him a special death was keeping him alive.

Dean began rocking in earnest, yanking at his bindings, trying to tug a knot around to where he could reach it with his teeth. This process was only halted when a hand fisted in his hair, yanking his head up. He winced, glaring up into the face of a lamia contorted in a vicious grin.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” she purred. “Same I can’t do it right. Nice and slow.”

“We going to fight or make out, ‘cause I’m getting real mixed signals here.”

The smile turned into an outright snarl, and a serrated blade that looked like it would hurt was lifted into his field of vision.

Right when Dean was sure he was about to find out if Pastor Jim had been right all these years, it started to hail. Or it sounded like hail. The roof started to rattle like hundreds of baseballs were being dropped onto it, so loud everyone stopped fighting to stare up at it. Then the walls began to shake, crystalline blue light pouring into the windows.

The lamia let Dean go as though he burned her. “They’re here,” she whispered, eyes wide, expression turned to one of pure terror. “Oh shit they’re here.”

Right that very moment Dean wasn’t sure what question he wanted an answered more. Who the fuck was this ‘they’ person that seemed to terrify them so much, or why that light was the exact same hue of blue as the marks on his arm when they were glowing. People who’d been at each other’s throats mere seconds ago were now drawing into a central position on the floor, weapons and fangs out, forming a defensive circle.

“Uh, you gonna tell me what that is?” Dean asked, raising his voice to be heard over pounding and rattling.

No one answered.

One by one, the lights overhead exploded, bulbs disintegrating into a shower of sparks and glass, until the only illumination came from whatever the hell was outside.

“Can someone at least untie me?”

The words had barely left his mouth when the side doors, the ones that apparently hadn’t been bolted, began to bang. They hurled themselves against the wall, back into their frames, then back out again. Over and over, adding to the chorus of increasingly loud pounding and shrieking wind outside. Yes, alright, they were in Kansas, but they had alarms for tornadoes. This was not a tornado. These people wouldn’t look scared shitless if it was just a tornado. Even Azazel and the dragons looked genuinely afraid.

He was trying to decide if it was worth trying to shout over the racket a third time when the wall he was facing, a smaller wall with warehouse doors built into its base, was pushed inward. It folded like so much tinfoil, revealing a creature that was unlike any Dean had ever seen before in his life.

All at once, the people began to scream. A high-pitched ringing filled Dean’s ears, his eyeballs feeling suddenly very warm as he stared up at the glowing beast. But then the ringing faded a little, and he began to make out words. Not from his ears, from his head, similar to the voices he’d made a habit out of ignoring.

_“You_ dare!” the voice roared. _“You people_ _dared lay a hand on him? Insignificant, presumptuous, ignorant, moronic excuses for life! You don’t deserve to be in the same room as him, yet you kidnapped him? Thought to take his life? You interfering, magot-laden swine will not leave this room alive. Interfering with soulmates is forbidden. Those laws were written eons ago. You honestly thought yourselves above them?”_

Meanwhile the creature was leaning forward, one limb braced on the floor, two more folded beneath it so it could lean into the hole it’d made by collapsing a wall, at least two more reaching over the roof, others bracing against the floor and grasping walls. Dean was faintly aware that the people who’d kidnapped him, and then begun to fight over who got to kill him, were now screaming. He did spare them a glance, but only briefly. All had their hands, paws, or whatever else clamped over their ears as they shrieked in agony. Their eye sockets all burned with fire, each of them dropping dead one by one, goners from the moment they looked up at this creature.

Dean gave them a few second’s glance, then looked back up at the beast before him. He didn’t appear to be dying a painful death, not that he really noticed. He found himself mesmerized, which he felt was fully justified.

What he was looking up at now was absolutely nothing like anything he’d ever seen before. Not in paintings, not in drawings, not in sculpture, not in any depiction that had survived to the twenty first century. He knew, he’d looked. Though the more he stared, the more it occurred to him that he’d seen bits and pieces that might fit into what he was looking at. As if people had had an inkling that this sort of creature existed and had tried to depict them, with minimal success for their efforts.

They were bent, kneeling from what he could tell, but at a guess they were well over fifty feet tall. It looked like they only had one pair of legs, and while they wore no form of clothing they didn’t appear naked either. He couldn’t really see any muscle or bone beneath luminescent flesh, never mind anything that might signify gender. For the most part they consisted entirely of smooth, unblemished pale blue flesh broken only by eyes. Countless, glaring, angry eyes, all a slightly darker shade of blue than the rest of them. Maybe not even flesh, considering appendages that appeared to be fingers were crushing metal like it was rice paper.

They had more than one pair of arms, though. He counted six, three on each side, with double joined elbows and things on each end that could have been hands. Hands with pointed, gouging fingers attached. Those were interesting for about a minute, until Dean noticed what was behind them. He couldn’t make out anything, and at first he thought it was just because it was dark. Then he realized he wasn’t looking at shadows, or even the night’s sky. He was looking at wings. Broad, black expanses glittering in their own light, looking like so many windows into the cosmos. The more he looked, the more Dean could swear he saw constellations.

When those cosmos began to shift he snapped his attention back to the creature, who appeared to be shrinking. They slowly straightened to an upright standing position, by which time they actually fit in the space they’d ripped open in the warehouse. Dean dragged his attention back to their head, only to realize for the first time there was three of them. They didn’t appear to be holding stagnant, which was doubly weird when you took into account none matched, and none were humanoid. One he was certain resembled a bird of prey, another was more equine, while the center head was decidedly wolf-like. That was about as specific as any one of them seemed to get, though.

As they shrank to a point where they could no longer keep a hand on either side of the warehouse’s side walls, one arm reached towards Dean, a talon-like finger extending to point at him. In that same instant, his chair and bindings alike came apart. The ropes unwound, then burst into smoke, the chair jerking into separate parts even as it went to ash. Dean fell onto his ass on the floor, unable to tear his eyes away from the creature before him.

They kept right on shrinking, and he slowly rocked forward to hands and knees. When he caught sight of the bodies between them, though, he sat back on his heels rather than approach. Every single one of his captors was now dead on the floor, eyes burned out, bodies and faces contorted in agony. This creature was still ranting, raging in a fury, and though they kept circling back to English they did use other languages too. Something about the sanctity of soulmates, and breeding with the mouth of a goat. Dean wasn’t sure how those two things were related.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the creature was only double your average human height. They began walking forward, one purposeful step at a time, their voice going silent. Dean could feel every eye on him, his skin tingling, heart racing in his chest, but he couldn’t move. Wind still whipped through the warehouse, only aggravated by six, very agitated wings.

When they were a mere ten feet away, this person wrapped their wings forward, curling them around to encompass both them and Dean in a dome of starry black feathers. Dean was faintly aware he was still gaping like a brainless idiot, but he also wasn’t sure he could move. Especially when one of those glowing hands was reaching out towards him.

A foot away from the human, that hand froze. The creature hesitated, then slowly withdrew their appendage. They seemed to hesitate, then their form rippled. It wasn’t unlike what happened to the surface of a smooth pond when you tossed in a stone, which was very disorienting. When the whirlwind kicked up around them, Dean had to close his eyes, raising an arm to protect his face from flying debris. As soon as it died down enough he looked up again, only to find a very different creature standing before him.

If it wasn’t for that same shade of pale, glowing blue now shining from their eyes, Dean would have thought them human. Well, that and the black wings going transparent as they folded themselves neatly at the person’s back. They were about his own height, male, and very human. Fair skinned, short dark hair, five o’clock shadow, and only two arms. He was even wearing clothes. Dean had no idea why they had chosen to don black slacks, black dress shoes, a white button-down shirt, a black jacket, and a tan trench coat over it all. There was a tie, too, cobalt blue and skewed.

This newly transformed humanoid cocked their head at him, then turned still glowing eyes to their own left arm. As Dean watched, they rolled up their sleeve to bare their forearm. All the lights were out, even the emergency lights, but his night vision had gotten good about the same time he’d started seeing cancer. His throat went tight as he recognized his own name, ‘Dean Winchester’, scrawled in his own hand in what looked like black pen.

Mutely, he reached over to shove up his own sleeve, baring the markings he’d spent countless hours staring at. When he looked back up at his soulmate, they were rolling their sleeve back down and turning their attention back to him. The glow finally faded from their eyes, and though it was hard to tell he was fairly sure they were still blue.

“Hello, Dean.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Hello?”

Their head cocked to one side, a vaguely confused expression crossing their face. “Yes. Your first language is English, is it not?”

Slowly, Dean dragged himself upright, narrowed eyes not leaving the person before him. “That ain’t what I’m talking about. Where the fuck have you been? What the fuck even _are_ you? Is that all I get, ‘hello’?”

Rather than answer, they strode forward, walking right up to him. Dean took a step back, but before he could retreat farther they wrapped both arms around him in a firm embrace. He opened his mouth to object, but he got as far as, “Get your fucking hands-” before the words choked off. His eyes bulged as all six wings, each roughly the same size as his own, furled outward. Their constellations twinkled at him as they extended outward, then drove downwards. He yelped, but rather than drag them into the air the space around them jerked, twisted, then popped.

Dean flailed, stomach lurching, then shoved against trench coat covered shoulders. He staggered back, staring around wildly at his own apartment. The being before him was now standing in the space between his TV and coffee table, looking around curiously, wings folding back into place.

It was an instinctive reaction, really. He’d been drugged, kidnapped, almost killed multiple times, now this. Dean lurched forward, hand in motion before he could give it much thought.

Regret arrived even before he wondered if punching this person would piss them off. He felt that blow all the way up to his shoulder, pain shooting up bone and muscle alike. Even though their head jerked to the side with the force of it, they didn’t seem harmed by it at all. Dean turned his back to them so they couldn’t see his face, cradling his throbbing right hand to his chest. When he tried flexing his fingers they had no difficulties moving, so nothing was broken, but damn did it _hurt._

“Son of a bitch,” he wheezed quietly.

“You are angry.”

“You think?” Dean bit out, still not looking back at him, pacing towards the kitchen.

“You have questions.”

“Who wouldn’t?” the human demanded, turning on the faucet. He stuck his hand under a stream of cold water, forcing his fingers into a splayed position.

“Dean. Let me see.” They had come over to join him at the sink, brow furrowed in a worried look.

But when they reached for his hand, Dean jerked it away, hissing, “Don’t touch me. You don’t just grab people, and you don’t- what the hell was that, anyway? How’d we get here?”

They gave him an exasperated look, then reached over to grasp his wrist with one hand. “Teleportation. I can teach you, if you wish.” He spread his free hand over Dean’s knuckles, and a faint light shimmered beneath it. Dean, who’d been trying to jerk away, froze as the pain eased. He blinked, staring at his own hand as they took theirs away. He curled his fingers into a fist, then splayed them out again.

“What did you just do?”

“I healed you. Three bones were fractured. This should also be an ability you will have developed.”

Turning off the water, Dean asked slowly, “What are you, exactly?”

“I’m an angel.”

“Bullshit.” The word was out of his mouth before he could give it thought, even as he remembered what Sam had tried to tell him. “Seriously? How come no one’s ever seen you guys? Heard about you guys?” Pointing to his still bare forearm, he demanded, “And what the hell kinda language is this? What’s it written in? What’s your name?”

The so-called angel stared at the letters on his arm, expression softening. “My name is Castiel. It is written in Enochian. Humans don’t know it, or have access to our writings. As for the medium, it’s a special sort of ink. It’s made from our own blood, it gives extra strength to sigils or spells. It’s also how we sign our names, it confirms we are who we say we are.”

Dean stared at his arm again. “Wait, you mean….I’ve got your name signed in your blood on my arm?”

“There are other ingredients, but essentially, yes.”

It took a second to process that. Then he moved on to what struck him as the second most critical thing he’d just been told. “So I spent my life looking for something that was never there?”

Cobalt eyes snapped up to his face. “You searched for writings like this?”

“Well, yeah. I mean look at it. It don’t look anything like anything else on the damn planet, and it _glows._ What’s Enochian, anyway?”

“Each species, with the exception of humans, have a single base language. Enochian is ours.” A thoughtful look was crossing his face. “I suppose that would explain why they felt the need to accelerate their plans. I thought it was because they knew I had returned. Perhaps it was because they feared you were getting too close to the truth.”

“What truth? And where were you, anyway?”

“Your soulmate is an angel. Purgatory.”

“Wait, where’s purgatory? And what was an angel doing there?”

“Purgatory is…hell adjacent, I suppose. Hell can only contain human souls, not non-humans, so they and their soulmates go there. I was on duty there for the last twenty years, if I had tried to leave it would have cost me my life. That is why I couldn’t come to you.”

“What about before that?”

“I tried to find you. When you were born your soulmark appeared on my arm. I searched for you, but my own kind interfered. Eventually someone was able to get me penal duty in purgatory. The only reason I was able to leave was because I’d managed to earn enough favors to get myself out.”

“Do I wanna know?”

After a moment of consideration, Castiel mused, “I don’t think I know you well enough yet to decide that. I suppose it depends on your opinion of demons. One of them, the individual currently in charge of hell, likes his position. He has put a lot of effort into retaining it, which includes finding sources in each species. As an angel I was very valuable.”

“You made a demon deal?” Dean asked incredulously. They weren’t exactly common knowledge, even now. He only knew about them because he’d tripped onto texts detailing the ins and outs of such things. Mostly why you shouldn’t, but if you did, how to do it properly.

“I made a deal with a demon,” Castiel corrected, mouth set in a grim line. “Crowley didn’t require me to do anything…distasteful. Just to take care of some of his competition. He might be a demon, but he’s not unlike your average businessman. He’s actually done rather well running hell, those he wanted to be rid of would have made more trouble for humans and angles alike. In return he used his connections to pull strings. My penal duty was ended, but those who put me there are still active.”

“Why do they give a shit? And who the hell put you on penal duty?”

“My former commander. Ishim is among the ranks who believes in species purity. He dislikes humans, he doesn’t like the notion of sullying our kind with non-angel soulmates.”

“Hang on, has this happened before?”

“Yes.”

“When? Why couldn’t I find anything about it?”

“This particular faction has been in effect since the first occurrence, if you wish I can give you a detailed history.”

Dean eyed the angel for a long moment, looking him up and down. Better lighting affirmed his eyes really were blue, and they rarely left him. It was a little off-putting, being stared at so intently, but they were…guileless. More importantly, every question Dean had was given a prompt, genuine answer.

“Are you gonna answer every question I ask you?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I assumed you would have many.”

The human’s mouth set in a grim line. “You could say that.” He went over to his fridge, took out two beers, and went to set them in front of two chairs at his table. He took one seat, then gestured to the one opposite. Castiel obligingly took it, all six wings semi-transparent and drifting through the chair’s spines as he picked up the chilled bottle, studying it. He watched Dean twist the top off his and take a drink, then proceeded to mimic the motions. The angel seemed to be considering the taste as Dean ordered, “Start from the top. Where are you from? Why doesn’t anyone know about you? Cliff Notes, not full version, we can do that later.”

Castiel obliged. Dean had had a suspicion they’d be there a while, and he was right. Not that he much minded not getting any sleep. Not when he was finally getting the answers he’d spent countless hours searching for.

Apparently angels were akin to Fae, which they did have some knowledge of. Mostly because they only popped up every few decades to make off with their soulmates, and if their soulmates wished it they were brought back on occasion for visits. A primary difference was that angels deliberately kept their distance from humans and all others as a whole, they stuck to their own plane of existence. Some did like moving about on earth, blending in as a human, but the majority did not. Castiel admitted to being the former. He loved humans, was fascinated with them, and had been ecstatic when his long-awaited soulmark arrived, proving without a doubt that his soulmate wasn’t another angel. He’d already earned himself unwanted attention for spending so much time among humans, performing minor miracles here and there. Mostly healings or turning fate a little for someone who needed it. But having a human soulmate? That was one step too much. Apparently the majority of angels were designated as soldiers, meant to guard souls in heaven, keep ambitious demons in their place. As a seraph Castiel wasn’t just a strong angel, he’d risen through the ranks to being a commander by the time his soulmark had appeared. Meaning it had taken high ranking angels to interfere. Eventually they’d realized roadblocks wouldn’t work, so they’d assigned him as far out as they could without actually killing him.

Those who had kidnapped Dean were among the few on Earth who were aware of angels, and agreed to keep them separate. They, along with a handful of very high ranking demons, were the only ones privy to angelic existence. On the rare occasion someone with an Enochian soulmark appeared, they ran interference. In extreme situations, they would just kill them. According to Castiel, Dean was the fifth person in history to have an angel for a soulmate, and they’d only killed one of the others. The other three had met their soulmate and lived long, content lives. One of them Castiel had known personally, long ago. An angel named Benjamin, whose soulmate had been a human female from Madrid.

That brought Dean to a more relevant line of questioning. Namely, what the hell was happening to him. Castiel surprised him a little by how much regret he seemed to carry on that front, on being the cause for what the angel had known would be a traumatic experience and unable to be there to provide any sort of aid. The order of things apparently varied, but while a human soulmate wouldn’t become an angel completely they would take on many abilities and characteristics. The wings, for one, often in a color similar to those of their soulmate. They could be used for teleportation, though it would be more difficult and take more effort. They could become solid or transparent at will, which Castiel promised would be useful once he got the hang of it. He could even use them to fly in a conventional fashion if he ever chose to do so. Dean swore he never would, as long as he lived, which prompted an explanation to his new lifespan. Initially he’d been horrified at the thought he might now be immortal, which Castiel promptly put to rest. Angels were long lived, not immortal. Their average lifespan, should they not be killed in the field, was roughly two centuries. When their assorted other biological changes kicked in, a human’s own aging would slow to match the progression of their angelic soulmate. Castiel himself was approximately one hundred and eight years old, which according to Dean’s mental math meant he’d only bought himself an extra decade or two. He could live with that. Along with the excuse of Castiel not knowing who he was until Dean himself was born. Since angels were long lived, if their soulmate wasn’t yet born, their soulmark wouldn’t appear at their thirteenth birthday. It would only show itself when their soulmate was born, which had been the case with Castiel. Unfortunately not having one was as telling as a non-Enochian soulmark, so the moment his had appeared and confirmed the fears of those against non-angel soulmates they’d been poised to act. Castiel had known he’d run into interference, but at the time he’d had no idea to what extent. Something else he seemed exceedingly remorseful about.

The headaches took a little more explanation. According to Castiel, his brain had been rewiring itself. He could now hear and see everything an angel did. True forms were always visible, illnesses and falsehoods could be seen, but when Dean asked he did admit you could learn to ‘tune it out’. The human added it to the growing list of things he would be making this seraph teach him in the coming days. At least he’d already learned to tune out angel radio, which was indeed what all the voices were about. A sort of frequency angels used to communicate, which as an angel’s soulmate he was now able to tap into whether he liked it or not. Oddly enough, no angel had actually named the process before, seemingly there had never been a need. By this point Dean had already concluded that angels as a whole weren’t a very inventive race, and took some degree of smug pleasure in seeing Castiel’s brow furrow when he repeated, “Angel radio?”

Thankfully he hadn’t had cause to do any healing since that accidental incident with Benny, but while his own abilities were as limited as his transportation it was something he could do now. By the time Castiel was explaining this the sun was rising outside. Dean made him keep going while he made breakfast, moving on to why angels looked human even if they weren’t.

This answer was longer winded than much of the others, and more confusing, which he hadn’t thought possible. Apparently angels were often born in their true forms, with the exception of nephelium, who had a human parent. Castiel then had to pause and explain that yes, nephelium existed, and yes they stayed hidden too, not that there were many around. Then he resumed explaining how any non-angel who looked upon an angel’s true form would be burned alive from the inside, which was what had happened to his kidnappers. Dean only survived because he was Castiel’s soulmate, looking at an angel’s true form wouldn’t harm him in the slightest. It was why, unless they were on their own plane, angels took human forms. Just what that form was depended on the angel, they could change their outer form at will, though once they reached maturity they were stuck with the same one. What they chose after thirty years was generally dependent on the angel themselves, seeing as their true forms were intersex. For his part, Castiel felt most comfortable in the form of a human male. The other attributes were just the ones he’d found himself using most of the time. Dean took that to mean he’d used this combination of eye color, hair color, skin tone, and assorted other features most often.

“I thought you said you’d never drunk coffee before.”

Castiel blinked those baby blues at him, then peered into his mug, empty yet again. He’d eaten and drunk whatever Dean had put in front of him, but he kept going back for more coffee. The human had had to brew a second pot. “I haven’t. I supposed I’d never tried it. Sustenance isn’t seen as much of a priority among angels. Or an art form.” He stood, going to refill the mug emblazoned with the Slytherin crest, a gift from Charlie.

“How are you not vibrating right now?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know the whole point of coffee is caffeine, right?”

“I like the flavor,” Castiel told him with a shrug, returning to his seat. “The folklore is true, by the way. Your ancestors learned by watching goats.” Taking a sip, he mused, “You realize this caffeine you favor was meant to be a toxin, yes?”

And this was why it was almost noon and Dean still had questions. He’d gotten a lot of answers, but Castiel tended to go down rabbit holes if you let him. He’d spent far too much time just talking about bees, and Dean had no idea how they’d landed on the damned things to start with.

“Don’t know, don’t care. Lets circle back to Marv. What’d you say his name was again?”

“Metatron.”

“Yeah, that. How the hell did an angel end up a landlord. No, _why_ would an angel be a landlord?”

“To keep an eye on you. He is being dealt with. Metatron is actually rather fond of humans, he enjoys your stories, but he is also disgusted by the notion of having one as a soulmate. It seems rather hypocritical if you ask me.”

He was taking yet another savoring sip of his coffee, and Dean had moved on to worrying if he’d have to find another apartment in the middle of a semester, when someone knocked on his front door. He jumped a little, startled back to reality. Castiel’s eyes narrowed, and he set down his mug. Before Dean could stand the angel was on his feet, wings going solid as he strode towards the door, eyes briefly flaring with pale blue light, a silverly blade dropping from his coat sleeve into his palm.

“Cas, wait!” Dean blurted, scrambling after him. Castiel was too much of a mouthful, and the angel himself didn’t seem to mind once he’d gotten over his initial confusion. “The hell are you doing?”

Castiel stopped when Dean grabbed his arm, the one holding a blade, but only to grasp his wrist in turn. “It’s not possible they’ve all been dealt with yet. There hasn’t been time. I won’t allow harm to come to you.” As he spoke he was prying the human off.

“Are you shitting me right now?” Dean hissed incredulously.

“Why do you have such a fondness for profanity?”

Before Dean could comment on the ridiculousness of that, Castiel continued towards the front door. The human grabbed his free arm but was left to stumble along with him or be dragged, since he refused to let go. He hadn’t asked yet, but he’d gathered that angels were made of sterner stuff than whatever humans were composed of. A part of his brain was trying to work out who was at his door, it was Saturday but he hadn’t had any plans, when Castiel unlocked it and threw it open.

Sam stood on the mat outside, his copy of the apartment key half extended. Brown eyes widened at the sight before him, his mouth dropping open. He was still gaping when Castiel demanded, “Who are you?”

Dean’s attention snapped back to the angel, or more specifically, to the blade he still held. Scowling, he let go of his arm and moved to put himself between the two. “Stand down, Cas. Sam’s my brother. Put that away, now. And do something about the wings, you’re scaring him.”

Castiel visibly relaxed when Dean said the word ‘brother’, and returned to the compliant behavior he’d been displaying all morning. He obligingly stepped aside, the blade disappearing, wings going transparent again as they folded themselves to his back once more. Sam clamped his mouth shut, stumbling inside when Dean dragged him in so he could shut the door.

“You- why haven’t you been answering your phone? Who is this? Is he an angel? Was Bobby right? Were those wings? Why did he have six? What was that knife made of?”

“Knock it off, Sammy, why do you always gatta ask a dozen questions at once?”

“Is he your soulmate?”

Before Dean could decide how to answer that, Castiel offered a simple, “Yes.”

Sam’s face lit up like the damned sun. “That’s awesome! Congratulations!” He didn’t step forward so much as he bounced, throwing both arms around his brother in an enthusiastic, congratulatory hug. Dean swayed under it, wondering vaguely when his kid brother had gotten taller than him, only to be released so Sam could turn on Castiel. “Hi, I’m Sam, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Hello, Sam.” Castiel looked at the hand offered to him for a moment, then visible realization crossed his face before he reached out to grasp it. He had fully returned to the calm if curious state he’d spent much of the morning in, studying Sam with what looked oddly like contented interest.

“So are you an angel?” Sam asked, letting go of his hand.

“Yes.”

“Why were you so hard to find?”

“It’s a long-ass story,” Dean interjected. “Who are you texting?”

“Bobby, and Jody, and everybody. Why haven’t you said anything?”

“Because it just happened. Give me that!”

Sam backed up, holding his phone out of reach. “No way. Why shouldn’t they know? They’ll be happy for you.”

“I’m not dealing with all those ‘I-told-you-so’s’ from Bobby,” Dean argued, advancing on his brother.

“Who is Bobby?”

“You haven’t told him yet?”

“Told me what?”

Rather than answer, Dean made a grab for the phone. He and Sam went down in a tangle of limbs, crashing onto first the couch, then the floor in a very undignified manner. He was still trying to wrestle control of the phone when it was plucked from Sam’s hand, and both brothers froze, looking up as Castiel studied the device.

“This is a….cellular phone, yes?”

Sam gave Dean an incredulous look. Dean let his forehead thunk onto the floor with a quiet groan. It was going to be a very long day.


	7. Epilogue

Bobby didn’t actually say “I told you so”, but it was strongly implied. In the process of studying Sam’s phone, Castiel had inadvertently tapped the number which had proceeded to call Bobby’s line. He hadn’t seemed surprised to hear a voice coming through the device, though the angel did seem perplexed as to how he’d made a call. Things had spiraled from there, much to Dean’s chagrin.

The entirety of that day, and the next, were something of a roller-coaster. Castiel refused to leave Dean’s side for most of it, to the point the human had to explain that things like relieving oneself generally required privacy. He lost count of the number of times he had to explain personal space to the angel. It was bad enough when they were alone, but it got worse when they were ordered to go see Bobby and Jody or have them come banging on his door. At least no one else could see this proximity often coincided with having at least one wing curling around Dean’s person. The only good thing to come of the ongoing ordeal was that his adoptive parents noticed, and counted it as points in Castiel’s favor. Dean was annoyed at how often he found himself tripping over him, but Jody seemed to find the whole thing amusing.

At least Castiel had the presence of mind to wait until Dean was driving back across town that evening, unable to escape until Jody had fed them both, to ask, “Sam said those were your parents by adoption?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Did something happen to your birth parents?”

“Long story.”

“Have they passed?”

“Mom has. Maybe Dad has too by now. He spent a lot of time trying to drink himself to death, maybe he finally pulled it off.” Then he reached over, turning up the Bon Jovi coming through Baby’s speakers. “Angels have parents, don’t they?”

“We do.”

“Where are they?”

“My father spends most of his time tending the gardens that were once Eden. Joshua tended myself and my sister when we were young, but if we want to see him now we have to go to him.”

“What, is he hiding? Who would he be hiding from?”

“My mother. Naomi is a seraph, like myself. She’s also a general, and in charge of the angels like Metatron who would rather keep us a safe distance from humans.”

“She doesn’t like humans?”

“No. She is of the opinion that all non-angels are below her. Anna and I inherited our…curiosity, from our father.”

“Hang on, if your Mom was a general, couldn’t she help you get out of purgatory?”

“She could have. But she wouldn’t.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“Really? When?”

“When she gave me the post, and told me I was to stay there until I either got myself killed or came to my senses. Whichever occurred first. I was never her favorite, neither was Anna. Frankly I think she would have preferred I died at that post, it would have allowed her to save face.”

Dean stared down at the wheel as they came to a stop outside the apartment building, slowly putting the Impala in park. He didn’t talk about John much, or Mary for that matter. Not when it could be avoided, which he made sure was often. They’d spent enough time trying to distance themselves, he didn’t see the point in letting his father occupy anymore thought than he already had. Then again, if anyone wouldn’t judge, it would be someone who’s own mother wanted them dead.

Castiel didn’t push him on the subject, though. It was one of the more tolerable habits Dean was beginning to notice. A lot of the things that the angel did that annoyed him or upset him ended up being infractions committed by obliviousness.

Over the following weeks, the apartment building was taken over by Castiel, shortly after he decided that having some sort of occupation to generate income would be wise if he was to remain with his human soulmate. Dean was just glad he’d found something else to occupy him. The angel had a habit of still getting underfoot, but he was adapting. Dean even got used to having an all-powerful seraph following him around like a puppy. It was embarrassing to walk out of a lecture hall to find him just standing there, an opinion he only changed after the time he instead came out to find Castiel seemingly having a conversation with one of the ducks that roamed campus. Somehow it was worse than when the angel managed to wander two miles on foot because he was following a bee.

Eventually Dean gave up. Castiel still had an issue with personal space, but he didn’t have to kick him out of the bathroom anymore. Besides, odd or not, the seraph was his soulmate. Something that became easier to see with each passing day. Even when he technically had his own apartment as the owner of the building Castiel still refused to live elsewhere. Hell, after the first week Dean relented and let him sleep on the same bed. But only because the angel refused to budge from his couch, which he insisted was perfectly suitable.

On days when Dean was swamped with assignments or working late, he’d trudge home to find food waiting for him. Granted Castiel’s cooking skills were limited, but he was happy for the human to teach him how to make things beyond PB&J’s. Doing anything with the human, especially at Dean’s suggestion, always garnered a smile from him. If it gave Dean a peculiar, fluttering sensation in the general vicinity of his stomach, no one ever had to know. Whether it was showing him how to make taquitos, introducing him to quality shows to binge in Dean’s absence, or just making a supply run at a grocery store, Castiel seemed almost blissfully content. As long as one wing could be wrapped around the human, he offered no complaint.

Why it made the angel so damn happy when he found Dean’s stash of research materials, he had no idea. All he knew was that he came home from work one day to find scans from old texts, notebooks filled with scribble, and various notes scattered around him. Castiel had looked up from yet another scanned copy in his hands, the last one Dean had ever obtained, and smiled. A big, toothy, gummy smile that made his eyes twinkle.

“What? And why are you going through my shit? You know some of that’s illegal, right? If you get me arrested, you’re gonna have to post bail.”

“You searched too.”

“What?” Dean asked tiredly, trudging towards the kitchen. He still wore his coveralls from work, tossing his jacket over a chair as he went to get a beer.

“You used every resource at your disposal.” Castiel stood, text still in hand as he slowly crossed the room. “I was serious before, Dean. Before and after my penal sentence, I did search for you. I scoured the earth for any trace of you. Even then it took months. It was easier when you were technically adult, you had more of a trail to follow, but I came very close to not finding you in time. I didn’t…many don’t search, not like this.”

Dean pushed the fridge door closed, turning around to find Castiel standing very close to him. Rather than remind him of the personal space rule, he just sighed and asked, “So, what? You didn’t think I’d look?”

“I wouldn’t have faulted you if you hadn’t.”

“Fat lot of good it did me,” Dean grumbled, taking a swig from his bottle. “All I did was rule out every damn species and culture. Only mooks who knew what this shit was on my arm gave me the run around.”

“But you looked, Dean.” The angel surprised him, setting aside the text so he could take Dean’s face in both hands. “That means a great deal. Thank you.”

“Uh, you’re welcome, I guess?”

“I was blessed with a truly beautiful soulmate.”

Dean balked at the entirety of that statement, particularly the word ‘beautiful’, but before he could object Castiel was leaning forward. The human’s eyes widened as warm, chapped lips pressed gently over his, and he froze, staring at the seraph when he pulled away to study his face. He was faintly aware of his beer hitting the linoleum, but neither of them so much as twitched.

“Did I do that wrong?”

“Did you…just….”

Worry crossed Castiel’s face. “I suppose I should have asked first. My apologies.”

Dean kept staring, even as the angel bent to pick up the bottle, putting it in the trash and cleaning up what had spilled. He knew Castiel was his soulmate, had been very aware from the jump that the angel’s preferred humanoid form was male, but honestly it was something he had managed to successfully avoid thinking about. Maybe once upon a time he’d thought he might swing both ways, but among John’s other shinning qualities was intense homophobia. Neither Bobby nor Jody would condemn him for such things, but by then it had been firmly anchored in the ‘deal with it later’ column.

Seemingly, later had finally come.

The human took a deep, shaky breath, then marched forward. He grabbed Castiel by the lapels and pulled the surprised angel into a second kiss. It was roughly as awkward as the first, but by the third they were starting to get the hang of it.

Considering they had met nearly two months ago by this point, the fact that it was their first kiss was rather impressive. But Dean found he didn’t mind. Castiel might be an awkward, dorky individual, but once a boundary was established he would not cross it. After that first kiss he made a habit of asking first. If Dean made it clear he did not like something, he would not do it anymore. If it was something like personal space where he was merely annoyed it was an ongoing battle, but after transporting himself into the bathroom while Dean was in the shower and getting screamed at, he never did so again.

It didn’t occur to Dean until that kiss that he was starting to actually love his soulmarked soulmate. They got along well enough, sure. And yes, Castiel had become a permanent, constant, reliable fixture in his life. His circle of friends liked him, as did Bobby and Jody. Charlie had gotten a good vibe off of the angel even before he healed her carpel tunnel, which of course guaranteed Gilda’s approval. Benny seemed to like bickering with him, but Garth had hugged him goodbye after their first meeting. Naturally Sam was enthralled, he came by whenever he could, often with Eileen in tow. It had taken her three hours before she gave him a stamp of approval. It probably would have been longer, Eileen was cagy, but it seemed angels were fluent in countless dialects, including sign languages. He was able to maintain a conversation with her faster than even Sam, and Dean still had no idea what all they talked about.

Approval from the few who’s opinions mattered helped, but it wasn’t just that. It was countless little things all cobbled together. Dean wasn’t sure he could even give an answer if someone asked him. He just…knew.

He knew things weren’t conventional, not that there was much conventionality when you had a non-human soulmate. The first outing that he might call a ‘date’ had started with Castiel shoving him off the top of the Empire State building, helping him learn how to fly after weeks of convincing. He actually got used to having wings of cosmos curl around him, to the point he felt the absence when they weren’t there, something that took him by surprise to say the least. Having someone do little things for him, just because, took even longer to get used to. Getting coffee brewing in the morning, miracling Baby’s tank so it was full of gas, making sure he had a jacket if it was going to be cold that day. Considering he was supposed to be a powerful seraph, a decorated commander, Castiel had a very wide mother hen streak. Something that only clicked after a particularly rough exam when Dean came home to the angel gingerly taking an apple pie from the oven, no less than five brutally failed attempts scattered around the mess his kitchen had become. Castiel had never made a pie in his life, could barely manage frozen pizzas at that point, but he’d decided to try because he knew Dean was having a rough week and wanted to cheer him up.

The Spring semester ended. During the summer he went full time at Bobby’s shop. Castiel moved him into the two bedroom apartment he was afforded on the building’s first floor. By then what he called ‘courting’ was in full swing. After five bouquets in five days Dean put his foot down on flowers. He packed Dean’s lunch each day, and it wasn’t always a PB&J, but there was always a sickeningly sweet little note. He never asked for anything in the physical department, only stole the occasional kiss. Well, and cuddles. He did seem to really enjoy those. Even if getting them meant curling around Dean like a cat while he did homework on the couch.

If other angels circled them, Castiel lied about them not being there. Seemingly he’d simply been branded an outcast by his own kind, not that he took offense. Angels didn’t seem very angelic, if the seraph lost so little sleep over losing contact. Dean never met Joshua, but the aging angel passed on his regards through Anna, whom he did meet. An angel whose humanoid form was a female with red hair and an Enochian soulmark. She seemed nice, especially once she deemed Castiel happy with his new lot in life. According to her, he was far safer here than he’d been in any station before. She also cleared up some questions Dean had in regards to angelic wings. Castiel had turned beet red when his snickering sister had informed the human that the constant wing-flaring or curling around him was mating behavior. Showing off plumage or displaying possessive behavior.

More importantly, Anna showed up to the wham-bam-thankyou-ma’am elopement ceremony, approximately one year after Castiel had torn apart that warehouse to save his life. It probably would have been sooner, but his seraph had the patients of a saint and Dean was commitment shy, which surprised everyone, including him. One more thing to blame squarely on John’s head, if you asked him.

When Dean walked for his diploma, it was with a gold band on his hand, four job offers, and a proud husband applauding from the audience. His soulmate, his seraph, transparent wings furling high into the air. Who could ask for more?

**~~~The End~~~**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Check out the [art masterpost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30124149) too!


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